Followed
by lin-ifyouplease
Summary: A summer unlike any other is coming for the teens of Beacon Hills. What Scott McCall's pack didn't see coming was a disease that would slowly start killing off everyone in town. Meanwhile, a new guy is after Arielle McCall, and her boyfriend, Stiles, doesn't even seem to notice. Can the pack pull it together to save the town before it's too late? SEQUEL TO DROWNED
1. The Dust Settles

**AN: Hey guys! Welcome to "Followed", the sequel to "Drowned"!**

 **If you haven't read "Drowned" yet, stop what you're doing and go back. There are a lot of references to the first book, plus the OC and the relationship she's in is kinda the center of the story, so reading about it in the first book is going to do you a world of good.**

 **Good? Alright yay! Then sit back, relax, and enjoy chapter 1 of "Followed". This takes place about 8 months after the events of the first book.**

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Police tape everywhere, people walking around trying to figure out the latest disaster that occurred in town, sirens flashing red and blue so bright that it was hard to see in front of your own nose. There were people talking to the sheriff, wondering if what they saw was even real while he talked them down, telling them they probably just imagined the whole thing because of the trauma. But the victim knows they saw something. They saw something unreal. One would say it was like a panther of some kind.

A jeep pulled up to the scene. Out came 5 teenagers who were just students at Beacon Hills High School. If the driver wasn't the sheriff's son, people would be wondering why they would even show up to this place. However, they all looked extremely worried, especially the sheriff's son and the boy in the passenger seat. The strawberry blonde, the tall brunette, and the buff curly haired boy were looking around the crime scene, trying to figure out what went down just by looking at the scene.

The sheriff saw them group around the crime scene and he sighed. He placed his hands on the two nervous boys' shoulders.

"Did you get 'em?" he asked.

Scott McCall turned around and nodded to the sheriff proudly.

"We got him," Scott replied.

Stiles spun around and added, "And when he says 'him', he means we got the werepanther. We got him."

Sheriff Stilinski frowned at his son, then nodded and bat both boys on the back.

"Good work," he commended.

"Where is she?" Stiles asked immediately, getting more and more anxious by the second.

The sheriff looked doubtful, but began to open his mouth. Scott cut him off, calling to his dad when Agent McCall came on the scene. He and Stiles scrambled themselves over to the agent, almost out of breath just with the nerves.

"Did you find them?" Scott asked.

Agent McCall sighed, "No… none of my team could find either of them in the sewage."

Both Stiles and Scott took a second and sank. Even the sheriff could see how this messed them up. Agent McCall didn't look too happy with the result, even after they took down the threat to the town. It just wasn't complete until they were found.

"I knew it…" Stiles said quietly, running his hands through his hair, "I shouldn't have let her go. We should have gone with her or all of us could have found another way. I should've told her-."

"Dude," Scott said, placing his hand firmly on Stiles' shoulder, "They're not dead yet. If we can't find them, they'll find us. I know they will."

There was silence between them as Stiles started breathing heavily to calm himself down. What was starting to get on Scott's nerves even more was a tapping sound that he was hearing that sounded like it was coming from a far distance. Next he started to hear a muffled cry. There was a pause, then the tapping got louder. This was followed by another cry under a much more clear voice.

"Help!" it shouted, "Scott! Stiles! Isaac! Someone help!"

Scott looked over at Isaac, who looked back at him, their expressions wondering if they just heard the same thing. When it suddenly hit them, they took off running fast towards the sound. They ended up in the middle of the road in the woods where the crime scene was far off in the distance.

"Did you hear that?" Scott asked Isaac.

"Yeah…" Isaac responded quietly, looking around.

The sound of the tapping continued, but it was louder because they were closer. They heard the cries for help once again and Isaac looked over his right shoulder, then started walking closer and closer until the sound got louder.

"Scott!" Isaac called when he saw what was now under his feet; a sewer hole cover.

He turned around and felt his heart racing faster. Isaac used all his strength to slowly lift up the huge metal cover to reveal the sewer hole with two girls inside, one sitting on top of the other's shoulder.

"Scott? Isaac?" the girl on top gasped when she finally smelt the fresh air.

Scott looked into the hole and took the hands of the brunette, taking her in his arms and hugging her tightly. "Arielle! I thought I lost you."

"We thought we were gonna die down there," Kira said as Isaac helped her out of the hole next.

Arielle let go of Scott and looked behind her. "Isaac! You're okay too!"

"It's gonna take more than a stupid werepanther to get rid of me," Isaac laughed, hugging Arielle, "I'm just glad you're safe."

"And you?" Scott asked, placing his hands on Kira's body to make sure she was standing up alright, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Kira nodded, squeezing Scott's strong arms tightly as she tried to keep her balance, "Yes… I think I'm okay."

Scott let out a huge sigh of relief and moved his hand to the back of Kira's head, pulling her against his chest and kissing her messy forehead, thankful that she was alive. He smelled the scent of smoke on in her hair and he looked to Arielle, who was looking at the flashing sirens in the distance. She looked from the cars to Isaac and then Scott.

"Is he…?"

Both boys nodded and Arielle's own heart started racing.

"Wait!" Scott halted, still using his strength to keep the tired Kira standing, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Arielle assured him, "It was humid down there. I need to see him."

Before anyone could object, Arielle took off running towards the direction of the police cars. Back at the crime scene, however, Stiles was leaning against his dad's car, talking his ear off.

"Okay, so if that didn't work, we should check around all the lakes in Beacon Hills," Stiles insisted, "Leave no stone unturned."

"Stiles," the sheriff said, "We'll find her soon."

"I know, but soon isn't soon enough," Stiles said, starting to become anxious, "Do you realize what could happen to her between now and soon? We have to get to her NOW before-."

Stiles' eyes wandered towards the woods when he started to see the silhouette of someone approaching him. He suddenly stopped speaking when he saw who was standing a small distance away from him. Her hair was perfect, newly cut to just below her shoulders, and curled perfectly against her smooth tan skin, which was covered in mud. Stiles thought he would lose all of his breath just at the beautiful sight of her. Arielle saw the boy in front of her, remembering the last image she had of him. She was yelling at him, wishing he would just leave her alone. Then the explosion happened and she didn't know what had happened to him. Yet there he was, shaking like a freezing wet dog, on the verge of tears, wearing another stupid long sleeved plaid shirt. He was perfect.

"Oh thank god…" both of them finally said breathlessly.

They bolted towards each other and kissed, his hands on the back of her head and around her waist. Her hands were grabbing onto his unbuttoned plaid shirt over that stupid white shirt with black hemlines. When they let go of the kiss, he took another deep breath and placed his hands on her shoulders, feeling her skin and rejoicing that he could actually be in her presence again.

"I thought you were dead…" Stiles whispered quietly.

Arielle shook her head. "No… I made it out in time…" She reached her hand up and touched his cheek, rubbing her thumb against his face, then sliding it to the back of his neck. "Stiles… I'm sorry about what I said-."

"It doesn't even matter," he interrupted, "I don't care about what was said earlier, we know now. You're okay. I'm okay. We're all okay."

With another deep breath, Arielle fell into his arms and rested her forehead against his, closing her eyes just to remember what it felt like to be close to him again after thinking that it might never happen again. The two of them were so caught up in each other that they didn't even notice Scott, Kira, and Isaac returning to the crime scene area just as the police were cleaning everything up.

"Scott," Agent McCall said, patting his son's shoulder, "I'm headed home. I trust you have your own way of getting there."

"Yeah," Scott said, "I left my bike nearby."

"Alright, I'll see you at home," his father responded, peeking over at his daughter in the arms of the Stilinski boy. He lowered his tone to talk to Scott again, "Make sure you sister gets home… safely."

Scott looked confused and turned over his shoulder to see Arielle and Stiles simply standing in front of each other with their eyes closed. He nodded to his dad.

Moments later, Stiles kissed Arielle's head and they broke out of their trance with each other. Scott told them it was a good idea to head back home, but Arielle insisted that Stiles be the one to take him home. Not even a protective older brother could ignore the light in her eyes when she looked at Stiles like that. Scott agreed to take Kira home his motorcycle, since her getting home by herself was probably not a good idea right now.

Stiles and Arielle sat in the jeep, driving down the road, not saying a single word. They were just holding each others hands tightly in between the two seats, rubbing each their thumbs against each other's skin, listening to the radio play a slow and sweet song. When the jeep pulled up in front of the house, Stiles stopped the car and let the radio play. He looked over to his side and saw Arielle staring at him with a small grin on her face.

"What?" he asked.

Arielle shook her head, still grinning. "I need to do better at appreciating what's right in front of me… I've been pretty bad at that recently."

"Hey, we had one fight," he said, "Out of the last 11 months that we've known each other and the 10 of those months we've been dating, we've only fought once… I'd say we're doing alright."

"Yeah…" Arielle sighed, then chuckled, "It's funny… I don't even remember why we started fighting in the first place."

"That's probably because it was something stupid we were both worked up about," Stiles suggested, "but that doesn't matter anymore…"

"No…" Arielle shook her head, "Not one bit."

He looked at her for a second, seeing her calm and peaceful with the moonlight hitting her face just right. She was going to be the death of him, for sure. There was something in his pocket that was there before any of this started and he was pretty sure it was still there, so he reached into the deep pocket and pulled out the little heart locket with the sea glass inside it. Arielle's eyes were immediately drawn to it.

"What's that…?" she asked.

"I was gonna give it to you on the first day of summer," he said quietly, looking down at the little heart shape in his palm, "I found this really pretty sea glass on the beach the other day and… it reminded me of you, so I found this little locket to go with it."

"It's beautiful… I love it."

She turned her back to him and pushed her hair out of the way as he placed the necklace around her neck, snapping the clasp into place on the chain. Arielle let her hair down and she touched the silver heart once, feeling the butterflies return to her stomach. The only thing she wanted to do was lean in and kiss him, so she did. The moment would have been hotter if there wasn't dying sewage on her arms and legs. She broke the kiss with their foreheads pressed together, both of them breathing heavily.

"If I weren't covered in sewage shit," she whispered, "I'd throw you in the back seat and have my way with you."

Stiles laughed a little bit, "Maybe I should buy you stuff more often…"

"Next time you screw up, I want a keychain with our names on it," she joked, causing him to laugh and fall back into his seat. She still leaned over to him, resting her head on his shoulder, "I love you…"

"I love you more," he said back with a grin.

Arielle looked up at him and stared for a moment before she maneuvered herself from the passenger seat to straddling his lap on the drivers side, taking his face in her hands and kissing him passionately. His hands started to wander from her waist, down to her hips, then to her ass as she began to rock her hips. She leaned back ever so slightly when the sound of the jeep's horn startled both of them.

"Goddamit," Arielle laughed, "Now they know we're here."

He sank his head down and touched her arm, really feeling the dusty and icky texture of the sewage.

"You know what? Maybe it's best we postpone this for another time."

"Good idea," Arielle nodded, opening the driver's door and getting out of the car first, "Walk me to the door?"

"Of course, my lady," he answered, getting out of the car and closing the door behind him, "I am nothing if not a gentleman."

He faced the house and held his arm out for her, which made her giggle before curtseying a little bit and taking his arm. They strolled up the walkway until they reached the porch just in front of the vestibule. Then he turned to face her and placed his hands on her waist.

"Let this be my promise to you," he said, tapping the necklace on her chest, "I'm gonna be a way better boyfriend this summer than I have been for the last couple weeks. Think about it, senior year starts in three months, which means everything's gonna change… I don't wanna look back on this summer and think, 'man, I was an idiot and ignored my girlfriend'. I'm gonna be the best for you and you're gonna hold me to this promise. Alright?"

"For the first time, that actually sounded like a cheesy Rom Com love declaration," Arielle giggled.

He smiled and kissed her forehead, then kissed her nose, and finally her lips. They had been kissing for a little bit before there was the sound of someone clearing their throat. Stiles and Arielle both awkwardly turned their heads to see Scott, standing behind the glass door of the vestibule with his arms crossed.

"Dad said to make sure you made it home… safe," Scott said.

Arielle made an angry face at Scott, then smiled at Stiles. "Typical…"

"He's probably just jealous because you're the one kissing me under the moonlight instead of him," Stiles laughed and kissed her cheek, "I'll call you tomorrow." He waved to Scott, who still had the protective brother face on. "Do you want me to call you too?"

"Goodbye Stiles!" Scott shouted.

Stiles winked and gave Scott a thumbs up before leaving, causing Arielle to giggle as she watched him get into the jeep and drive away. When Arielle turned around, she saw Scott opening the door and stepping aside, still giving her the judgmental brother look.

"You're just mad because he thinks I'm a better kisser," Arielle joked, immediately opening the next door and running up the stairs, "Love you!"

"Yeah, whatever," Scott said, trying very hard not to laugh.

There were always these moments after a supernatural threat has been taken down. Usually there's a sense of relief and now things can return back to normal, at least for a little while, until the next threat comes to town and pushes Scott and his friends to new limits they didn't even know they had. He had to admit he was dreading the next threat already, but for now, he would just have to turn off the lights and put this threat to bed. So Scott turned off all the lights on the first floor and slowly climbed up the stairs to go to sleep.

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 **I hope you guys enjoyed it! Just like in the first book, your reviews are a BIG help. Hearing back from you guys motivates me to write more and update faster, so the more you review, the quicker the chapters go up.**


	2. Prelude

It was the official last day of school at Beacon Hills High School. Thankfully, it was only a half day used to pick up exams and clean out lockers, otherwise everyone would lose their minds all day long and absolutely nothing would get done. Stiles took it to himself to clean out his locker first thing so he didn't have to drag all of that stuff to his car when all he would wanna do is run out of the school with his middle fingers in the air. After he put all of his school junk in the back of the jeep, he ran up to Scott, who was taking down the pictures of he and Kira that she put up for him.

"Hey!" Stiles said enthusiastically, starting to make a drumbeat on the lockers next to him, "Are you excited? I'm excited!"

Scott shrugged and started to laugh at the amount of energy Stiles had this morning. "Dude, are you okay? How much red bull did you drink last night?"

"None," he said, shaking his head rapidly, "I'm just really relieved and excited. For once, all of my ducks are in a row and everything is perfect. You'd feel really good if your perfect girlfriend decided to give you another chance instead of dumping your ass on the side of the road like she should have."

"Believe me," Scott said, closing his locker, "My girlfriend keeps two lethal weapons on her back. I know exactly what it feels like to screw up and make it out alive."

"I know, but like…" Stiles said, shaking his hands rapidly, "Like I've reached this new salvation and I feel really good about everything. My dad and I fixed the jeep, school's out for summer, and I have like the best girlfriend…"

"Can we not?" Scott asked, "That's still my sister."

"Sorry," Stiles said, "I'm just really happy…"

"No shit," Scott sighed, closing his locker, "If I screwed up that bad with Kira and she forgave me, I'd be relieved too. You probably had more to fear, though."

"Wait, why?"

"Because my sister doesn't tolerate bullshit."

"Ouch!" Stiles gasped, grabbing his chest, "That one hurt!"

Scott raised his eyebrows and started to walk away. Stiles quickly followed after him.

"We may not be the 'ideal couple' because she's perfect and I'm… you know… me, but we work really well together and I'm still shocked that she's with me and that you haven't ripped off my nuts for sleeping with her."

"Which is still a sore spot," Scott added.

"Right," Stiles said.

"It's alright," Scott said, patting Stiles' back, "She makes up for it by making jokes about you."

Stiles scoffed. "She may love to laugh about how pale I am, but I am actually her sexy white chocolate dream."

Scott cringed. "Gross, dude! That's my sister!"

"Too much?" Stiles asked.

"A little. Why don't you go find her while I try and get that mental image out of my head. Oh! and if you see Kira, tell her I'm waiting by my bike."

Stiles nodded and patted Scott's back once before heading down the hallway, through the double doors, down the stairs, to the right and to the very end of the first row of lockers that rested there. The fourth locker down from the right was where Arielle would be waiting for him. Meanwhile, Arielle was with Kira, helping each other gather their things before leaving for summer vacation.

"Have you heard from Isaac?" Kira asked Arielle.

"No," Arielle said, shaking her head, "but I don't blame him. He needed this getaway with Allison. I'm glad Lydia offered for them to go with her."

"I know. Greece sounds like fun," Kira said nodding, "and it's only been a week, so I'm sure he'll call soon."

"He better," Arielle said with a grin, "I'm tired of being one of two siblings. At least Isaac was the neutral zone in World War McCall."

Kira shrugged and smiled, "I think it's cute that you and Scott are becoming more like real siblings."

"That's cause we ARE real siblings. It was bound to happen," Arielle rolled her eyes, "That means interrupted makeout sessions, unkept secrets, and several rounds of 'i'm not touching you!'."

"He actually does that?"

"I told you! He ALWAYS does it right when you leave! I wouldn't lie about this."

"I'll watch out for it next time. I doubt you're lying. HIM on the other hand..."

"Exactly," Arielle laughed, "but whatever. It's summer. Are you and my brother planning on… sneaking off?" She gave her a wink, then laughed at how awkward that felt.

"I don't know yet," Kira said, crossing her arms, "Scott's so worried about you all the time that I have to do all of the planning myself."

"Wait… you plan when you have sex?"

"Is that bad?"

"No! It's not… THAT bad… but… I don't know, maybe I'm biased for spontaneity because my boyfriend NEVER thinks that far in advance."

"Speaking of which," Kira said, taking her way out of this conversation and pointing to the necklace she was wearing, "I never told you how much I love that necklace."

"Thanks!" Arielle said, touching it softly with her fingers, "It's been at least a week since he gave it to me and I still get butterflies when I see it."

"Aren't you glad he decided to give it to you then instead of now?" Kira asked.

"Thrilled," Arielle sighed.

Stiles came around the corner, only hearing Kira's question and Arielle's answer. He placed his arm around Arielle's shoulder and pulled her close to him.

"Yeah," he said with a proud huff, "I pride myself on being spontaneous because I never plan that far in advance."

"See?" Arielle laughed, looking at Kira.

"Oh hey," Stiles said, "Scott's waiting for you by his bike, by the way."

"Thanks," Kira said.

Arielle winked at Kira, whose face started to grow pink with blush as she left. Stiles moved his hand slowly from Arielle's shoulder down her back and finally resting on the curve of her waist. He kissed her once, then grinned at her.

"You wanna have lunch with me?" he asked quietly.

"I would love that," Arielle answered, "Maybe later we can finish what we started in the car."

"I would love that as well," he said, giving her another kiss.

Excitedly, Arielle jumped and placed her hands on her boyfriend's shoulders. "Everyone is raving about the necklace today. I used to get dirty looks from the snooty popular girls at school, but I walked around with my necklace all out and proud like 'that's right, what did your boyfriend get you last week? An STD?'." She giggled. "I've never felt more like a badass in my entire life."

Stiles widened his eyes and started to laugh. "Not even when you gained control over the water spirit that inside your body and used it to save the entire town?"

Arielle paused and thought about it, then lit up again. "I am so cool!"

He put his arm around her and chuckled, walking away proudly with his badass girlfriend out of the school and towards the jeep. They talked about the past year of school, what their goals were for next year, and then Stiles put on a song on that radio that Arielle thought was dumb and they jokingly argued about that, which lead to a playful cat fight at a stoplight which lead Stiles to cease fighting and just grab her hand, holding it tightly and never wanting to let go as he continued to drive down the road. The more time they spent alone, the more Arielle swore she felt like she was falling deeper and deeper in love with him. She didn't think it was possible to love him more, but that proven wrong almost every day.

As they were driving down an empty road that was paved through the woods, Arielle was looking straight in front of her when a flash of something dark went right past her face. She looked out the window and to the road that was fading behind them.

"You okay?" Stiles asked, placing a hand on her shoulder and gently rubbing it.

"Yeah…" Arielle said, sitting back against the seat, "I could've sworn I saw something just now."

"Like what?" he asked worriedly.

"Like… a flash of something, like something was trying to get somewhere fast." She looked over at Stiles, whose face was growing increasingly more worried. The last thing she wanted to do was worry him further, so she shrugged it off. "I guess it was nothing. I'm still kinda seeing things since the sewer incident, I guess."

Stiles looked at Arielle and rubbed her shoulder again, giving her a small grin as the woods faded away and the town started to appear. He parked the jeep at the very edge of the parking lot next to the street with cars zooming past every 30 seconds. They went into the diner, ate lunch, talked, laughed, shared their hopes for the coming year, Stiles paid, and then they went on their way out back towards the jeep.

"I don't care what you think," Arielle said as she strutted out of the diner, "Greedo shot first."

"You are sorely mistaken," Stiles said, chasing after her, "It was Han Solo who shot first."

"Lies!" Arielle shouted, turning around and walking backwards to the car, "And don't you dare say the wikipedia page says so, because that is a load of-."

Arielle turned around so she wouldn't trip over anything, but what she saw written on her boyfriend's jeep made her jump out of her skin and let out a quick scream, jumping back to Stiles. Stiles grabbed Arielle and held her tightly. The words on the back of the jeep were written in something red. They tried to convince themselves it was ketchup or syrup, but secretly, they knew exactly what it was.

The words said "It's coming for all of you."

Arielle didn't know what else to do except take her cell phone out of her pocket and call one number.

"Hello?"

"Scott," Arielle said, breathlessly.

"Arielle," Scott answered worriedly, "What's going on?"

"I don't think this is over…"

The next morning, Scott and Arielle tried to wake up later than usual because it was the official first day of Summer and that's what teenagers usually do when there's no school. However, the hidden message on Stiles' car the night before kept them both up at night. It was hard to sleep knowing that there was a threat to their friends, or to the whole town. They also didn't know enough to just sleep on it.

"It's coming for all of you," Scott repeated as they sat at the kitchen table of a bowl of cereal that was already getting soggy.

"What does that mean?" Arielle asked, "The word "it" could mean anything."

"Maybe it's a creature?" Scott asked, "An animal, maybe? Something not human?"

"And it's coming for ALL of us," Arielle noticed, then paused and threw her head on the table, "this is the least helpful threat we've ever received."

Stiles shrugged and started to rub his girlfriend's back when the house phone started to ring. Scott was the one to get up and answer it.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Scott?" Melissa said, muffled from the sound of the chaos from the hospital.

"Mom?" he answered.

"We just got a huge amount of patient check-ins," she explained, "so I think I'll take an extra shift today until the hype calms down."

"Patient check-ins?" Scott asked worriedly.

"Yeah. Looks like there was probably some crazy party and some kids got into some trouble. Honey, I gotta go now."

"Mom-."

The line went dead and Scott looked at the receiver before placing it back on the telephone. Arielle sat up and frowned at her brother as he turned around.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"I don't know…" Scott said pensively, "but I think 'it' managed to get a few people hospitalized today."

Arielle and Stiles exchanged a look before Stiles patted her on her lower back. "Go," he said. Immediately, the brother and sister stood up and started racing out of the door, hopping onto Scott's motorcycle and speeding towards the hospital. The two of them ran in and instantly found their way to the front desk where, of course, Melissa was standing, organizing medical records. When she caught sight of her children, she rolled her eyes.

"Why am I not surprised?" she said to herself, chuckling a little bit.

"What's going on?" Scott asked.

Melissa came out from behind the desk with her arms crossed, "It's not your concern. For now, it just looks like three students have alcohol poisoning. Nothing supernatural here."

"Are you sure?" Arielle asked, "because… Stiles and I saw something WEIRD earlier."

"Like what?" Melissa asked.

"A message on Stiles' jeep that says 'it's coming for all of you'," Scott answered.

Melissa paused and looked between the worried faces of each of her children. It was almost strange how similar they looked at times, especially when they were both worried and ready for action in the weird supernatural kind of way. She sighed and pulled them aside.

"Okay… right now it looks like three teenagers, from out of town most likely, caught this… disease," Melissa explained, "Their skin's getting pale and their muscles are weak. The doctors have tried the basic medicines, but nothing seems to be working. In fact, every time they try a different treatment, their condition gets slowly worse."

"And you didn't think that was supernatural?" Scott asked.

"I thought it wasn't, but if you guys have reason to believe it is…"

Arielle and Scott exchanged another look and nodded at each other.

"We'll get back to you on that," Arielle said before the two of them rushed back out the door.

When they pulled up in front of the house, they both removed their helmets and walked back up the walkway to their house

"We can't know anything for sure," Scott said.

"A threat written on your best friend's car and three teenagers dying isn't enough of a sign for you?" Arielle asked.

"We can't identify what's happening unless something else goes wrong."

Arielle looked forward, shaking her head, but then she suddenly stopped and gasped, touching her hand to her heart when she saw another message written in red on their front door.

"You can't escape…" Scott read solemnly. He started to approach the door, leaving Arielle behind in shock. He touched one finger to the liquid and pressed it between his fingers, "Blood."

The very next day, Melissa reported back that, not only were the three teenagers quarantined, but that another patient was admitted with the same symptoms as the original three. They say that, to be sure, that if something really bad happens and is about to get worse, it occurs in threes. There were four patients now, so there was no denying that the disease was serious, but Scott was hesitant on assuming that the messages were in relation to the sickness until he would see a third message. Soon enough, Stiles sent a picture to Scott and Arielle of a message left at the sheriff's station. Written in blood, it almost looked like different shapes trying to form letters. Nobody understood what it said.

"What is that?" Scott asked with Stiles over speaker phone as he and Arielle stared at the phone.

Arielle squinted at the phone, then took it out of Scott's hand. She started to zoom in on the picture and her eyes went wide.

"What?" Scott asked.

"What?" Stiles echoed.

"I know what this is," Arielle said, "This is ancient greek."

"Well that's great!" Stiles cheered, "Can you read it?"

"Not exactly… ancient greek is different then modern greek. Unfortunately, supernatural greek creatures can't read ancient greek anymore. Stupid supernatural evolution... but I'll tell you what I can do. I can translate it letter for letter into modern greek. The letters and symbols can be changed into modern greek."

Scott got up and picked up a laptop, paper, and something to write with. After some online research with ancient greek symbols to modern greek letters, they had the phrase "Είμαι που φέρνει τον θάνατο" written down. When Arielle's pen finished the last letter, she dropped it and gasped.

"What does it say?" Stiles asked.

"Eímai pou férnei ton thánato," she read aloud, "I am the bringer of death."

"Well," Stiles sighed, "Happy summer everyone."


	3. Diagnosis

When teenagers receive a scary death threat message from an anonymous stranger, their first instinct might be to call the police. But this is Beacon Hills and this is Scott McCall's pack, so the first thing they could think of was to drive to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital to see if any weird kind of "death" had come through. Scott and Arielle lead the charge by pushing through the double doors, immediately finding Melissa McCall, their mother, at the desk.

"Mom!" they both shouted, causing her to jump.

"Has anyone died in the last 24 hours?" Scott asked.

"Or has anything unusual happened to any of the diseased patients?" Arielle asked.

"Don't you guys ever just come here to say hi?" Melissa mocked.

Arielle and Scott looked at each other and nodded, "Hi," they said before getting back to business.

"What's the trouble?" Melissa asked.

"The message written in blood at the Sheriff's Station," Scott began.

"It's in ancient greek and it says 'I am the bringer of death'," Arielle finished.

"So we need to know if any of the patients have died yet," Scott said.

Melissa got up and patted her children on the back. "Not yet," she said, turning them away, "Go home, both of you. And you two," she said sharply, pointing to Kira and Stiles, "keep them there. This area isn't safe anymore. You don't know what kind of illness you can catch with all of these patients rolling in."

"So there are more patients?" Arielle asked.

Melissa paused and raised her eyebrows, pointing out the door. "Home."

Scott and Arielle knew there was no pushing it at this point. All the way back home, all Arielle could do was complain about how being kept out of the loop annoyed her; how useless she felt when she didn't know what was going on. She could only imagine how Scott, her alpha brother, must have felt about it too.

"You know what?" Stiles said in the passenger seat of Arielle's car, "Maybe your mom had the right idea. You know, maybe this disease is treatable and she doesn't want you guys to spend your summer freaking out over nothing."

"Again, four dying patients and more rolling in after several threats written in blood doesn't sound like nothing to me," Arielle sighed, pulling up in front of her house.

Stiles reached over and rubbed her shoulder. "Relax, babe," he said quietly, "That's what you need. We can go back in your house and finish that conversation about who shot first."

"You think THAT'S gonna relax me?" Arielle said, resisting the urge to laugh.

A few minutes later, Arielle and Stiles were on the couch in the McCall living room, simply enjoying each other's company as they should be. That was the kind of moment that Stiles really wanted this summer. He liked the quiet moments when they were alone, in fact, they haven't had a lot of those moments more recently. His mind started to wander and he thought about how there might be less of these moments when his senior year comes around. There'll be even less of these moments when he goes off to college and she's busy with her own senior year to worry about. The smile that was on his face before was now gone as he looked pensively into nothingness. Arielle, being able to sense everything wrong with Stiles, looked at him with a frown.

"What?" she asked, adjusting herself so she was sitting directly in front of him.

He shook his head and tried to smile, but looking at her concerned expression made him sure that putting on a happy face wasn't going to work. Arielle scooted herself closer to him and touched his cheek, her hand falling from his face to his neck, then his shoulder.

"Tell me what's on your mind," she requested.

He shrugged. "I don't like change…" he finally said with a sigh, "After this summer, I'm gonna be freaking out about college and then I'll be in college before we know it, and then you'll be freaking out next-."

"Your point?" Arielle asked.

"My point is that life is gonna be so crazy," he explained, "On top of normal school life stuff there's the weird supernatural stuff that's inevitably going to come for us… but I don't want this to change. I don't want US to change."

"I love you," she said plainly, "THAT'S not going to change. If everything around you is changing and you need to cling on to one thing that's the same, then count on the fact that I am so scandalously in love with you."

He grinned and nodded. "I love you too…"

Arielle smiled and leaned just her face close to his. "Hey," she whispered, "Kiss me once before I die?"

Stiles chuckled and shook his head, their noses rubbing together. "Are you mocking me?"

"A little bit," Arielle giggled.

"Oh come on! That was meant to be romantic at the time," Stiles defended himself.

"It was a little cheesy," Arielle said, cringing, "Just a tad bit."

"Alright, how's this for romantic?" he said, raising his eyebrows and pulling his girlfriend so she was sitting in his lap, her legs wrapped around him, their lips inches apart, "How about I order pizza for us right now… with sausage… and extra cheese."

Arielle gasped. "Keep talking like that and you'll never leave this couch."

She kissed him, pushing him back down onto the couch, their bodies pressed together, finding as much friction as they could between them in the broad daylight. Both of them were moaning into each other's lips as she started to slowly grind on him.

"We never did finish what we started in the jeep the other night," Arielle whispered against his ear.

He took her face in his hands and crushed her lips back onto his, his hands then moving from her face to her arms, then around to her back, squeezing her shirt in his hands. He could hear her moan as she reacted to the feeling of his hands across her back underneath her shirt.

That's when Scott walked in the door, fearing for his life when he heard the sounds in the living room.

"Please tell me you're not having sex on our couch," he begged, shutting his eyes tightly.

Arielle rolled her eyes and sat up, getting off of her boyfriend and sitting on the other side of the couch.

"We're not anymore, apparently," Stiles said a little angrily.

"We need to get back to the hospital," Scott said urgently.

Arielle shook her head. "Mom told us to stay home."

"I don't think mom understands the severity of the situation," Scott argued.

"I think your sister's right," Stiles said, subtly placing his hand on her outer thigh, "You heard Melissa, she said we could possibly get infected if we hang around there."

Scott shook his head. "I doubt it's contagious, but we can wear masks. We just need to get to the bottom of this if we're gonna stop this from infecting others."

Arielle sighed and stood up, fixing her shirt. "Obviously, you're not going to change your mind. So let's go."

"Great!" Scott said excitedly, "Kira's there now trying to figure out how to break in through the back, so we better hurry."

Scott quickly turned and left out the door. Stiles and Arielle exchanged one quick glance of disappointment and acceptance before they were both out the door, this time taking Stiles's jeep.

Instead of parking in front, they followed Scott on his bike and parked in the back way where Kira was standing, waiting for them. They quietly followed her to a propped door where a security camera was stuck looking in the other direction. The first place they agreed to check was the morgue to see if any of the patients had died yet. When they got there, there were doors labeled with a yellow toxic sign.

"You think that might be it?" Stiles said with a chuckle. Nobody laughed so he stood there letting his laughter fade out by himself.

Arielle opened the door and pulled the tray out to reveal a man dead on the slab, skinny as a stick and white as bone. They all cringed.

"Okay, that's gross," Stiles said with a cringe.

"Poor guy…" Kira said quietly, "It looks like he's lost a lot of muscle."

"I'll say," Arielle nodded, "He's practically a skeleton."

"And so pale…" Kira added.

"What's wrong with pale?" Arielle sassed, "My boyfriend's like a piece of paper."

"Thanks, babe," Stiles said sarcastically.

"Anytime."

"So it looks like this disease is basically breaking down all the muscle in the human body," Scott said, looking closer at the body, "Also draining all the blood from the system."

"Oh hey," Arielle said, looking at the side of the rib cage, "Look… part of the bone looks like it's been gnawed off or something here."

"So it can break down bone too?" Kira asked, worriedly.

"Basically, this disease is sudden death," Stiles observed.

"Basically," Scott answered, "and more people patients are checking in."

"How many days ago did mom say the patients checked in?" Arielle asked.

"Not long ago," Kira suggested, "My guess is the teenagers were going out to celebrate the last day of school when it hit them."

"It's too soon to say," Arielle added, "We won't know until more bodies start piling up."

"In the meantime we can start trying to figure out who did this," Scott said, "This bringer of death hasn't been here long and already one is dead. If we stop them, maybe we can save a few more lives before it's too late."

Arielle, Kira, and Stiles all nodded and closed up the body. Stiles blinked several times.

"You okay?" Arielle asked, patting her boyfriend's back.

"Oh fine," he nodded, "Do you guys it's physically possible to un-see something?"

She chuckled a little bit as the four of them started to exit the hospital out the back way. As they jumped off the loading dock one by one, Arielle was the last one to come down. She started to follow behind Stiles when almost immediately, a car started bolting at a very fast pace, almost too fast for Arielle to see.

"Stiles!" Arielle screamed.

But by the time Stiles turned around, there was a flash of light and the sound of a horn accompanied by the flying body of Arielle, only she had flown out of the way. She rolled onto the ground and immediately got up with nothing but a few scratches on her legs. But in her place in front of the car was a boy, lying on the ground face down.

"Oh my god!" Kira gasped, grabbing onto Scott.

"Arielle!" Stiles shouted, running to her side, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said quickly, brushing herself off.

Obviously, she was fine. Whatever she had was a lot better than what that poor boy on the ground was feeling. From the looks of him, he looked young. He was probably about their age. He had dark hair and was wearing a red hooded sweater with jeans and some relatively nice shoes. She rushed to his side and placed her hand on his back, feeling him still breathing, but very quickly.

"Can you hear me?" she asked him.

The boy groaned in pain.

"Oh god, you need help," Arielle muttered, "Scott! Get mom! Quickly!"

Scott and Kira exchanged a look and nodded to each other before he ran around to the front doors of the hospital. Arielle stayed by the boy's side as Stiles watched her comfort and coo to him, brushing his hair back and telling him that everything was going to be okay.


	4. The Boy Who Saved Arielle

People had come and gone through the hospital all day long. In fact, Arielle had almost forgotten that the town was under siege by a deadly toxic disease because all she could think about was the boy who saved her from that car accident who was now lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Stiles tried several times to convince her that it was going to be alright, but no matter what he said, he couldn't shake the guilt that was pulsing through her entire being. She couldn't stop shaking her leg and biting her nails. At one point, Stiles swore he saw the water fountain shake, so he had to hold her hands to calm her down. Eventually, he gave up and left her there in the care of her mother.

After a little while longer, Melissa finally came out into the lobby.

"How is he?" Arielle asked anxiously.

"He's fine," Melissa confirmed, making Arielle sigh and stand up with relief, "We operated immediately on his leg. It'll take a while to heal before we can release him. He's 19 years old and he just moved here by himself, no family or anything."

"He saved my life," Arielle repeated, not only telling her, but just repeating it for herself in order to comprehend what just happened, "Can I meet him?"

Her mother nodded. "He's actually asking for you now."

Melissa lead Arielle down the hall and to the third door on the left.

"Be gentle," she warned her daughter, "He's only just woken up from surgery a little while ago."

Arielle nodded and Melissa opened the door.

"Hey kiddo," she said happily.

He looked at Melissa and smiled. "Hey Dr. McCall."

"I brought the girl you wanted to see," she said, pushing Arielle by her back into the room, "The one you pushed out of the way. This is my daughter."

"I saved your daughter?" he asked, surprisingly impressed with himself.

"Yes, which is why I was especially keen on taking care of you," Melissa chuckled, "I'll leave you kids to talk for a little."

Melissa closed the door as the boy turned off the TV, giving her his full attention.

"Hi…" Arielle said awkwardly, walking further into the room, "I'm Arielle McCall."

"Hi Arielle," the boy said with a sweet smile, "I'm Theo. Theo Raeken."

"Hi Theo… I just wanted to thank you for-."

"Saving your life," Theo finished, "It was no problem. I guess we're both lucky. You got a couple of scratches and I get out of a harmless surgery unscathed."

Arielle grinned and looked down at the ground. "Well if there's anything I can do to help you while you're here, my mom's kind of your doctor, so I'm pretty much around most of the time."

"Nah, it's fine," Theo shrugged, but then he actually got another good look at her. He saved her at first because she was a person in distress, but now actually seeing her made him think twice about why he actually did it. She was a perfectly sized tan brunette with gorgeous brown eyes and wavy hair. Maybe it was an act of fate, he thought. "On second thought… I could get used to seeing you around… if you want to hang out and keep me company, I won't object to it."

Before Arielle could respond, the door opened. It was Mr. Perfect Timing himself.

"Stiles…" Arielle said sweetly, "Come in. This is the guy who saved me from that car accident."

"How ya doin?" Stiles waved, walking into the room, instinctively grabbing Arielle's hand.

"Stiles, this is Theo. Theo, this is Stiles."

Theo looked at their hands, their fingers interlaced as he stood a little too close to her for comfort. That could only mean one thing. He sucked his teeth.

"Boyfriend, huh?" he said, disappointingly, "Damn. I guess I'm out of luck."

That wasn't exactly the reaction Arielle thought she would hear from Theo. Now the remark he made about her coming to see him wasn't about feeling guilty or doing an act of civil service, but it was flirting; straight up flirting. Arielle turned to Stiles and casually mentioned that they had to go somewhere, and so she left, saying goodbye to Theo and closing the door behind her.

Stiles drove her back to her house without saying a word. Arielle mentioned to him that she would have to take more trips to the hospital to check up on Theo, since she already promised him she'd help him until he gets better. They shared a chaste kiss and a quiet I love you before Arielle got out of the car and walked up to her porch, watching him drive away. It wasn't the reaction she was hoping Stiles would have either. He did just listen to Theo say that he's out of luck because she has a boyfriend. Did that mean Theo was going to back off respectfully or non-respectfully? Was Stiles jealous? Did he even notice?

Kira was the first person Arielle called when she was finally within the comforts of her own room.

"And then he saw Stiles walk in and said something like 'well I guess I'm out of luck'," Arielle finished her long winded explanation.

"What does that mean?" Kira asked, "Does it mean he's gonna back off? or does it mean he's letting you know he likes you?"

"Exactly! I have no idea. What's even worse is that Stiles didn't even seem to notice."

"He didn't say anything?"

"Not a thing. I tried to mention that I'm going to see Theo in the hospital more often and he just kinda sat there staring at the road. Do you think he's jealous?"

"Not even a little bit," Kira answered, "Honestly, I think you guys are so secure in your relationship that things like this doesn't phase him."

"I hope so…" Arielle said, rolling over on her bed.

"What? Do you wish he was jealous?"

"I don't know! Maybe…"

"Arielle!"

"I'm sorry! Maybe a little jealousy might be what we need to get that spark going again… you know we haven't had sex since before the werepanther incident?"

"THAT long?"

"I know…"

"Huh…"

Scott knocked on the door, making it push open slightly.

"Hey," Scott whispered.

"Hold on, Kira," Arielle said, pressing the mute button, "What's up?"

"Another patient just checked in," he said, "Mom said we can come check him out for clues if we want to."

"Good… that might be helpful," she un-muted the phone, "I gotta go. I'll call you later."

After hanging up, Scott and Arielle raced back to the hospital AGAIN. This time they didn't have to sneak in the back. Melissa learned not to keep her children out of the hospital if something's going on. It'll just lead to car accidents like that one Arielle barely missed. She lead them into the elevator and to the second floor where the quarantined patients were.

"Here," she said, giving them both face masks, "But make it quick before she wakes up."

Melissa opened the door and Arielle and Scott were faced with a patient who had a tent all around her while she slept. Scott unzipped the translucent tent and stepped inside, letting Arielle go in after him before he closed it. Scott cringed.

"You smell something?" Arielle asked.

"Definitely," Scott coughed, "You don't?"

"No…"

They took a closer look at her, seeing her fragile arms that looked very skinny already.

"Wow, this took on fast," Scott said, "Her bones look so weak…"

Arielle scanned the area and found a bucket by the bed which had a lot of fluid in it. "Is this blood?" she asked, "It looks almost too dark to be blood."

"It has to be," Scott said, "It's too thick to be anything else."

"Wow…" Arielle said, examining the amount inside the bucket, "That's a lot of blood…"

"It looks like her body's been ejecting a lot of blood so the disease can take over."

Arielle moved her hand towards the sleeping girl, but her brother grabbed her hand.

"What are you doing?" he asked quietly.

"Checking to see if her eyes," she argued, "Maybe she's a supernatural if they glow. Or maybe her pupils are dilated."

Arielle freed herself from her brother's grasp and gentle opened the eyelid of the sleeping patient. Her eyes were blue and seemed to be normal looking, but instead of the whites, it was all red, as if they were swollen. Horrified, Arielle snatched her hand back.

"Okay, that's gross," she said.

"There's no way this just naturally happened," Scott said, shaking his head as they exited the tent and the hospital room.

"What do you mean?" Arielle asked, "You think someone poisoned them?"

"That's exactly what I think. This doesn't just happen to cells or organs. I think someone's injecting them with some kind of chemical that does this to their bodies and slowly kills them off."

"Let's go tell Stiles, maybe he can come up with a plan of action," Arielle suggested.

"Good idea," Scott said, "We all know I'm terrible at making plans."

They raced in and out of the elevator almost a little too quickly for all the hustle and bustle on the first floor. Arielle tried to keep up with Scott, but ended up tripping and falling on something that she was unaware of entirely. She felt her stomach drop and her body fall to the floor, but almost as if it were in slow motion, Theo caught her. He was sitting in a wheelchair, wheeling around to get some fresh air. He wasn't expecting this, but it was exactly what he wanted. Now here was the girl of his dreams sitting in his lap with his arms wrapped around her. Scott stopped and turned around.

"Is this how it's always gonna be with us?" Theo laughed.

Arielle looked from Theo to Scott and quickly saw the look of judgment and confusion in his face. She quickly got up and composed herself.

"I hope not," she said, trying to laugh back, "Uh… Theo this is my brother, Scott. Scott, this is Theo, the guy who saved me from that car last night."

"Hey," Scott said with a head nod before bolting out of there.

Arielle looked at Theo again, who had that smolder look on his face. Before getting invested, she shrugged and ran out the door behind him as fast as she could.


	5. Epic Romances

"Red swollen eyes, a lot of dark red blood, and practically unable to move for herself," Scott said, slamming a list down on the table of things he and Arielle had discovered at the hospital a few days ago.

"Great," Stiles said, opening up his laptop and beginning to type notes in a Word document, "I'll see what I can do with this. If this is a natural disease from now or from ancient times, I think I'll be able to find out what it is."

"Do you want me to call Arielle?" Scott suggested, "She seems to know a lot about Greek Mythology. Maybe she has some input."

Stiles shook his head. "No that's okay… She's probably busy taking care of Theo today or something."

"Has she said anything? You know, about Theo?"

Arielle's boyfriend paused, trying to actually recall the last time she talked about Theo, the 'knight in shining armor' who saved his girlfriend's life. He sighed. "No…"

Meanwhile, Arielle was, in fact, going to visit Theo. She had been to see him every day for at least 20 minutes at a time. Sometimes she'd stop by just for a quick update, other times she would stay for hours, talking, walking around the hospital for exercise, or watching TV with him in complete silence. Either way, she enjoyed the time she spent with him. It seemed as though when he said he was 'out of luck', it meant that he would back off respectfully, because he was nothing but respectful and sweet since meeting her boyfriend. After a few weeks of visiting him, Arielle finally decided to bring Kira along with her to finally meet him, since she had been talking about him so much.

Arielle knocked on the door and came in with food and a bag of movies.

"Star Wars Episodes 4-6," she said proudly, "I brought 1-3 too, but that's only if you start to get too invested in the series after episode 6."

"Ugh, this is what I get for being trapped in this hospital," Theo chuckled, throwing his head back against the pillows.

Kira stepped in behind her and got a good look at him, finally. When she saw him, she was almost too surprised by what she saw. A perfect face with perfect bone structure, jawline, perfect nose, and perfect eyes to match that perfect hair. Thank god it was only his leg that got messed up in the accident. She closed her mouth before he noticed her staring.

"Hey," she waved, "I'm Kira. I'm Arielle's friend."

"Also my brother's girlfriend," Arielle added.

"I brought cheesy popcorn," Kira said, holding up a bag of popcorn with an awkward smile to go with it.

"Oh great! I love cheesy popcorn," Theo cheered, "You wanna break into this while I'm held against my will?"

"Star Wars is not torture, it is a gift," Arielle argued.

Theo raised his eyebrows and looked at Kira. "You should have been here when we watched all four Twilight movies. Talk about an epic romance saga."

"That is pop culture!" Arielle laughed, "You wouldn't understand half the pop culture references today if I hadn't made you sit through those."

Kira laughed and shrugged. "I actually have to meet up with Scott really soon… so I should go."

"Aw," Arielle sighed, pouting her bottom lip, "Well I'll see you later tonight."

Kira waved at both of them and closed the door. They sat there in silence for a brief amount of time. Arielle was looking down at the movies in her hand, turning the cases in a circular rotation. Theo was looking at Arielle, watching her fascination with what she was holding. Sure, he liked to tease her for her interests, but he would do anything just to see her smile.

"Your mom says I'm getting out of here soon," he said with a wide smile, "She said the progress wouldn't have gone by this fast if it wasn't for your help."

"Theo," Arielle gasped, "That's amazing! You must be so excited."

"I am," he agreed, "I want to get better… so you can see what I look like out of this hospital gown."

She chuckled and brushed her hair behind her ear. "Maybe I can finally show you the best places to eat around town. I bet that'd be better than hospital food or the cheap take out I bring on occasion."

He nodded and laughed. "Speaking of going out to eat… you still with that Stiles kid?"

Arielle smiled, almost blushing at the sound of his name. "Yeah…" She hadn't felt that giddy about him in weeks.

Theo shook his head in disbelief. "How does a guy like that end up with a girl like you?" Arielle frowned. "Sorry," he said, "I just don't see it. I guess I just think he's WAY out of your league."

"Trust me, he's perfectly in my league," Arielle assured him, "It's a long story. You probably don't wanna hear it."

He shrugged. "I'm still in this room for another day or so. I've got time."

"Okay… well…" she began, "I ran away from home to Beacon Hills. I was following my dad. I found him, but I also found out that I had a brother and mom I never knew about. After a while, I started to get used to my new family and I started being friends with some of my brother's friends; Stiles included. We got to know each other and next thing I know, I have a huge crush on him. Only he had a crush on another girl; Lydia."

"Ouch," Theo said, starting to get up from the bed.

"Do you need help?" she asked.

"No, I'm good," he said, "I'm just scheduled to take a shower right now before my physical examination. But please, don't stop on my account."

"You sure?"

"Please. It's just getting good."

Arielle cleared her throat and continued. "So, heartbroken, I started to move on with my life. I had a new family I was excited about and there was this guy, Aiden, who was interested in me. I guess you could say he was more 'in my league'. He and I dated for a little bit, but no matter how many times I tried to convince myself that I liked Aiden, Stiles kept making appearances. I really want to say that I didn't break up with Aiden simply because of Stiles, but that really is why I broke up with him. There was no way I could go on having these unwanted feelings for Stiles while I was with another guy. That wouldn't be fair to him, you know?"

"Makes sense," Theo nodded, walking into the bathroom with the door open so he could hear.

"So after Aiden and I broke up, Stiles FINALLY started reciprocating my feelings. Only, this time, I still wasn't sure I could trust him considering he kind of stomped on my heart and had no idea. But then I started realizing that he's actually really caring and sweet and funny and…" she trailed off as she glanced at Theo from the corner of her eye, watching the hospital gown come off for the first time, revealing his toned body and shorts, "...and good looking… eventually we just… gave in to our feelings for each other…"

"And you've been together ever since?"

"Well, there have been a few road blocks. Bickering, arguments, break-ups prompted by my brother, and that time my dad shipped me off back to Arizona only to let me come back no less than a month later. Other than that, yeah, we've been together for nearly a year now."

"Arizona… is that where you're from originally?" he asked, looking over his god-like shoulder at her, "Cause I'm from Tucson."

"Phoenix," Arielle said, fascinated, "I didn't know we lived in the same state."

"Yeah, it was just me and my dad," he said, "My mom passed away giving birth to me. My dad eventually caught a bad case of the swine flu while he was away. He never did come back."

"Oh wow…" Arielle said quietly, turning her head to actually look at him instead of glancing at him from her peripheral, "I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay. I moved in with my dad's best friend. Some life, though. I couldn't wait till I turned 18 so I could get out of that hell hole."

"I stayed with my dad's best friend too. Rex. Dinner specials included frozen meatloaf dinner trays in front of an old TV box trying to watch football games."

"Go Cards?" Theo asked.

"Go Cards," Arielle nodded.

He reached out and high fived her. She couldn't help but notice the flexing muscles in his arm as he drew it back to his side.

"You know," Theo said, "I may have had a dreary existence with only a tiny glimpse of what it's like to live on your own in freedom… but I'm really glad I've got you to relate to."

"You relate to me?"

"Yes… we both know what it feels like to be left behind… to pick yourself up from nothing."

Arielle paused. This was all true. Of course, there were kids who felt abandoned by their parents, but not only were they left behind by their parents, but they were sent to live in places they didn't want to be in and were now living at least a little bit happier than before. Arielle has a family, friends, and a boyfriend. Theo has a life of his own that he can start paving with no one else's approval. They could relate on that level PLUS he looked fine as he started the hot water, steam building up in the room.

"I'm gonna let you take your shower," Arielle finally said hesitantly, "but I'll see you later."

"Later," he called back, closing the bathroom door behind him.

As she pulled the knob down and opened the door, she felt a rush of cold air blow into her face. Perhaps a few days off in the non-humid air, away from Theo, was what Arielle really needed right now. If not for her sake, then for Stiles's at the very least.


	6. The Evil Eye

Arielle drove home from the hospital that very same day, almost too anxious, or nervous, to talk to Kira about Theo. Kira had heard so many stories from her, but now she had seen him in person. Now they could do real talk. At this point, Theo was such a big part of Arielle's life that there was no way she COULDN'T talk about it. The issue at hand was that the person she wanted to talk to about everything was the same person who probably wanted nothing to do with the situation. That probably explains why she hadn't seen or heard from Stiles in two days. Just talking about him that day to Theo made her long for him.

Given the circumstance, Arielle had a very strange night that evening. At around eleven thirty at night, she got up and started to look through her drawers for some pajamas to wear. The goal was to find the gray shirt that says "Oh My Gatos" on it with colorful rainbow shorts to match, but the only clean piece of clothing she could find was a dark purple dress that could be put in the category of "sleepwear that's not really for sleeping". In fact, there was a category for it. It was in her pajama drawer pushed all the way to the left. That purple piece of satin was the ONLY thing that was available for Arielle to sleep in that night.

She went to sleep, like normal, but when she fell into a very deep sleep, she started to feel this weird sensation in her dreams, like she was being touched in the way that she's wanted to be touched for a while. She heard panting and moaning and felt her own body writhing, her back arching. A few moments later, she finally realized that she was, indeed, having a sex dream. All she could feel was Stiles on top of her, his lips on her neck, and his fingers on her center, circling her clit, his fingers inside her. It was all the things that he knew would drive her crazy. She was grabbing onto him tightly, tangling her fingers in his hair as she threw her head back against the headboard of the bed.

" _Fuck, baby…_ " she moaned, " _God I'm so close…_ "

He moaned against her neck, quickening the pace of his fingers as he curled them inside her. It was so aggressive, so tough, and so very unlike him. She liked how intense he was already, but this was just a different experience. Her moans became so high pitched as she tightened her arms around him.

" _That's right,_ " he whispered. He lifted his head to look right into her eyes, but it wasn't Stiles she was looking at. It was Theo, " _Come for me_."

Arielle gasped, waking up instantly before anything else could happen in that dream of hers. It was morning. It felt like she had only gotten a wink of sleep, but according to the clock, it was now nine in the morning. She looked down at the dress she was wearing.

"I'm doing laundry today," she muttered to herself before getting out of bed.

She changed and brushed her hair, brushed her teeth, and decided that no one was going to know about what happened the night before. It was just a dream. It probably didn't mean anything. But if it meant anything, it probably meant that she was going through a dry spell and Stiles wasn't as much of a constant in her life as Theo, at least during this time, which is probably why Theo was in it instead of Stiles, her boyfriend, whom she hadn't seen or heard from in two days. Either way, no one was to know that dream ever happened.

"Hey Arielle," Scott called from across the hall, "Can you get the door? Kira's out front."

Except for Kira.

"Got it," she answered, running down the stairs almost too quickly before answering the door, "You would not believe the night I had last night."

Kira was expecting to hear about the events of the day before, making Theo watch Star Wars and eating cheesy popcorn for hours and hours. Instead what she heard was how Arielle had a sex dream about him.

"Do you ACTUALLY have feelings for him?" Kira gasped.

"No!" Arielle argued, "No way!"

"But you're fantasizing about him," Kira raised an eyebrow.

"No, not fantasizing," Arielle shook her head, "Okay, I was involuntarily fantasizing about him ONCE. That doesn't mean anything."

"It means that part of your subconscious is obviously attracted to him," Kira argued, "What are you gonna do? That guy's WAY better looking than Stiles."

"Theo is exceedingly attractive, I will say that… but I'm in love with Stiles. I've always been in love with Stiles. He's my boyfriend and he's been my boyfriend for almost a year now. I love him. I love Stiles. There's nothing more to be said about it."

"Except you said that you love him four times…"

"And Theo is good looking, but that's not to say Stiles isn't! He's so attractive! I doubt I'd still be with him if there wasn't a physical attraction, right? And on top of all of that, Stiles knows me better. I mean, just the other day, he seduced me with pizza."

"I envy you," Kira said bluntly.

Scott came down the stairs, adding a little snide comment, "I heard it. It was gross."

Kira whipped her hair as she turned to sass him, "After what you did last time? You can't talk."

Scott eyed Kira and raised his eyebrows, causing her to giggle.

"Okay, ew," Arielle complained, "Let's stop this conversation right now."

Scott chuckled, loving the idea of payback for all the time he's had to listen to Arielle's sex talks with Stiles. "Fine. Let's go."

"What about Stiles?" Arielle asked quickly as they were gathering their stuff together.

"He's meeting us there," he answered.

Scott started to leave the house, followed by Kira, and then a very confused Arielle after them. "And he called my brother instead of me, his girlfriend?" Arielle muttered under her breath, followed by a shrug from Kira.

"Bros before hoes?" Kira asked sheepishly only to receive a concerned look from Arielle, "Sorry, not helping."

In fact, nothing was going to help her. Arielle just had a lot of confusion and frustration to deal with. She probably wouldn't be feeling this way if she didn't have the sex dream about Theo and if Stiles hadn't ignored her for the last two days. The fact that he hadn't spoken to her in two days actually bugged her a lot more than she had expected. But now she was driving herself, her brother, and his girlfriend to the hospital to do some more sleuthing with her boyfriend. All she had to do was go up to him and ask him what's going on and then move on.

She pulled up to the hospital and the three of them walked in through the doors to see Stiles there, pacing.

"Hey," Arielle sighed with almost a little too much relief.

Stiles looked up and didn't look quite as relieved as she did, but he did look a little bit happier to see her. She ran up to him and hugged him, to which he reciprocated, tightly embracing her and cradling the back of her head.

"Hi," he said quietly.

"Where have you been?" she asked, "I haven't seen or heard from you in two days."

"I know," he said, backing up from her and shaking his head, "I've been so busy with this, trying to figure out what's been going on. But I think I'm finally starting to crack down on who's really behind all of this."

"You know who it is?" Scott asked excitedly.

"Not exactly, but I think I know where they came from."

Stiles lead them down the hall and all the way to the morgue. He pulled out the same body they had examined a few weeks ago. He smiled widely at them and nodded.

"Go ahead," he said happily, "Take a look."

"We saw this body already," Arielle said, extremely confused.

"The only difference is no one's come to claim it," Scott added.

"Poor guy," Kira said sadly.

"No, we missed something," Stiles said, "Something huge. Something we really couldn't have missed if we had known it was there."

"Like what?" Arielle asked.

Stiles grinned and lifted the wrist of the body, which had been face down on the slab. When he lifted it, Arielle caught sight of the mark on it. It was a blue circle with another white circle inside of it, then a light blue circle, and finally a black dot in the center. The second her eyes made contact with it, it was like something, or someone, had a tight grip around her neck and she suddenly couldn't breathe. She grabbed onto Scott, squeezing his arm tightly, looking at him with wide eyes, begging for help.

"Dude!" Scott yelled to Stiles, picking up his sister, "Put it down!"

Stiles put the wrist back face down on the slab and Arielle gasped, coughing a little bit. She stood up on her own when she finally could catch her breath.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she shouted, "That's the Evil Eye!"

"The evil eye?" Kira asked.

"This is good…" Stiles whispered to himself.

"Good!?" Arielle yelled again, "I almost died!"

"Can someone tell us what the Evil Eye is?" Scott asked, raising his hand a little bit.

"The Evil Eye was originally an old Greek Wive's tale about an eye that curses people with illness and death," Arielle answered, "so some guy decided to make a symbol that wards off all monsters. That's why I try to avoid eye contact with those things. Humans in Greece wear them to protect themselves from Centaurs, giants, cyclops, demons, spirits, or-."

"Nymphs," Stiles answered, "Whoever's bringing this illness and death to Beacon Hills, not only could be someone from Greek Mythology, but they obviously don't want Arielle to have anything to do with it."

"So if I get involved, I die," Arielle summarized, "If I don't get involved, then whoever's doing this wins."

"They're not gonna win," Scott assured her, "I'll make sure mom covers up all the wrists of the patients just in case."

Arielle nodded to her brother and they all started exiting the hospital. She followed closely behind her boyfriend, but he didn't pay her any mind. It didn't exactly feel good to have him almost kill her with the evil eye. Actually, it didn't feel good at all. What made her feel good was passing by Theo's room. Even better, he was standing in the doorway when he saw her. He waved to her and she waved back. What Arielle didn't see was Stiles, confused as to why that interaction looked a little too friendly to him.

* * *

 _They were standing in front of her bedroom door. The house was completely empty. It was the dead of night. Arielle had to admit she was shaking a little bit as she opened the door, letting him inside of the dark room lit by nothing but a few candles. She stood facing her bed as she started to feel her hair behind pushed to one side, Theo's lips kissing down the back of her neck. The way he was touching her body made her breathless, only beginning to ache for him. He spun her around by the waist so she was facing him, staring into his eyes that were glowing by the candlelight. The tension was too much as he kissed her deeply, pulling her body closer to his as she melted in his hands. It felt as though he was dying to kiss her, and she was completely lost in him._

 _He carefully let go of the kiss and backed her up onto the bed, inching closer and closer to her until he was completely on top of her. Almost desperately, their lips came back together, her arms wrapped around his neck, making his mouth move to her neck, gently kissing and sucking the skin there. It wasn't long before she tugged at the rims of his t-shirt, beginning to pull it up and off him. She took a moment just to feel his strong, sexy arms. Soon, he had her dress off as well. Even if Arielle wanted to resist Theo before, there was no stopping this. She wanted him and every regret she had about this was thrown at the window. With that, the rest of their clothes were gone in seconds._

 _He continued to kiss her and his cool hand ran down her body, stopping once to feel her breast, then dipped his fingers into her, both of them starting to moan just a little bit. They were both relishing how sexy and forbidden this moment was. They knew it was wrong, but it just felt so incredibly right. Arielle couldn't believe this was happening. For weeks, she had tried to get the thought of this happening out of her head, but now that he was here, getting fucked by his fingers, she hadn't felt so sexy in a long time._

 _"T-Theo…" she moaned, "Please…"_

 _He didn't say anything, in fact, he did nothing but listen to her. His fingers were replaced by the tip of his length, teasing her and letting her writhe in a wave of pleasure and agony. She was desperate. She needed him inside of her. He knew this and loved watching her want him like that. He loved it so much that he couldn't wait a second longer to finally have the woman he wanted. He was entirely inside her in seconds, looking right into her dark lustful eyes as she took him in. There were no slow strokes, but quick sharp thrusts which were unexpected, but so wonderful. He groaned into her ear, then moaned into her mouth as he kissed her. The only sounds she could make were his name, breathing it, whimpering it, and moaning it._

 _"Fuck I'm so close," she groaned, digging her fingers into his back as he started to thrust even harder and faster into her. Both of them breathing hard and moaning together._

 _He brought his lips to her ear, whispering moans and sweet words, feeling his hot breath against her skin. It wasn't long before she came undone in his strong embrace. He kept pounding her through her high, getting closer and closer to the edge. When it was finally over, both of them were tingling and trembling with each other, their breathing getting slower and slower._

 _"You have no idea how long I've waited for this," he said breathlessly._

* * *

No gasp, no uneasy breathing, or anything. Arielle just opened her eyes was suddenly in her bed, her bed covered by the morning sun. It was all just a dream. Another dream, that is. It was a raw emotionless sex dream that she had about Theo. The last thing he said in that dream echoed through her mind. It was probably true. Theo probably did want her like that. Another true fact was that Arielle has been waiting a long time, but it wasn't for Theo. At least that dream was good for one thing; she wanted to see Stiles.


	7. Plan B

Every moment was perfectly planned out. Arielle had picked out just the right underwear under the perfect outfit for when she would pay a little surprise visit to her one and only. Having a sex dream about Theo didn't sway her from Stiles. In fact, it made her want Stiles more. It reminded her of how much she missed him and how badly she wanted him. When everything was done, she got into her car and texted him a winking face before driving to his house.

When she knocked on the door, he was almost too surprised and confused to see her.

"Hey…" he said once he opened the door, "What are you doing here?"

"You didn't get my text?" she asked.

He shook his head and looked at his phone, "My phone's been off for a while now. I'm trying to get some really good work done with this case."

"Is the sheriff home?"

"No, he left about five minutes ago."

"Well… Kira and Scott are at my house," she lied, "So this was the first place I thought I could come to."

"You should always come to me first, you know that," he said, taking her hand and leading her inside to the living room couch where there were bowls of snacks and papers everywhere, "Your timing is perfect, actually, I just put some snacks out."

"Snack later," she said in a low register, pushing him down onto the couch, getting on top of him and kissing him.

He moaned for just a second, placing his hands on her lower waist, making her smile against his lips. But just when things started to get a little bit heated, he released his lips from hers and looked at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, sitting up holding her still in his lap.

She shrugged, "It's been awhile since we… you know."

"Yeah, I know," he nodded, "but do we need to do this now? I've got a lot of stuff I have to look over if we're gonna solve this."

Arielle started to rub his shoulders and bit her bottom lip. "So… how long do you expect me to wait in agony…?" She kissed him again, but he pushed away by her shoulders.

"Just a little longer," he said quietly. As gently as he tried to say it, that didn't stop her from getting just a little bit frustrated. She got up from the couch, crossing her arms.

"Can we talk, for just a little bit?" she asked.

"You know, babe, I would really love to," he began, "but I'm really close to getting this guy, so just give me some time and I'll be good."

She shook her head. He didn't even look up at her while he picked up the next folder of papers he was focusing on.

"I'm just gonna go then…"

And she left without saying another word, slamming the door behind her.

Maybe she was being a little moody because she didn't get what she wanted, but she was at least a little right for being upset with him. She wouldn't be having sex dreams about Theo if Stiles just put his goddamn work down and kept to the promise he made to her. That is exactly what she told Kira over the phone when she got back to her house.

"Did you say anything to him?" Kira asked.

"I tried!" she complained, "But he just shoved it aside like he does everything that has to do with me... " She groaned and fell onto the couch angrily, "He made a promise to me that night after we stopped the werepanther. He said he was going to be a better boyfriend. He said he wasn't going to ignore me anymore and yet, here we are. He's doing a really shitty job of keeping that promise."

Right as she said that, there was a sharp three taps on the door. Arielle raced to the door and looked through the peephole to see that it was Theo standing there.

"Shit," Arielle whispered into the phone, "It's Theo."

"Theo?" Kira asked, "I thought he was in the hospital."

"Yeah, he just got out," she explained, "I gotta go."

Arielle hung up the phone and opened the door. "Theo! Look at you! You're all better!"

"Yeah! It's really exciting," he said, keeping his hands shyly in his pockets, "I just wanted to check in on you, see how you're doing."

"Well you know, watching tv and eating frozen dinners," Arielle shrugged.

He grinned. "You wanna go to dinner with me? I was just on my way to pick something up but you can totally come with me… as friends."

Friends. Phew. That word made her feel SO much better about everything, especially considering how she imagined him naked the night before. Maybe now that she had that dream, she got it out of her system and can truly enjoy some friendship time with him.

"Sure," she said cheerfully, "Yeah, let me just get my stuff."

"Great!" Theo said excitedly.

Theo drove her to the same roadside diner and they took seats right by the window so they could watch all the cars speed past them.

"Are you excited to finally move in?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "I'm actually getting my GED pretty soon so I can start applying for jobs in the area."

"When's your test?"

"In a few days. Is it bad that I'm nervous?"

"No! It's normal to be nervous about a three-hour test that basically determines if you have a future or not."

He suddenly froze and started to laugh. Arielle blushed.

"Sorry…" she giggled, "I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

"It's fine," he sighed, "I was actually hoping you could help me study. I haven't been in high school in a year or so and you actually are in high school. Maybe you could give me some pointers?"

"Of course! I'm always happy to help."

"Good, because you were such a big help to me in the hospital. I honestly don't know what I'd do without your help."

"Oh stop," she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

The rest of the time in the diner, Theo only asked questions about her. She had to admit, it was a little weird at first that no matter how many questions she asked him, he could always turn it into a question about her. Eventually, she got used to it. She just assumed he was the type of guy who loved to analyze other people. The way he scanned her constantly made it seem that way, at least.

They got back into the car after they ate and decided that it was too soon for them to part ways, so on a whim, they went to the movie theatre and both agreed to see Jurassic World. It was the one movie they could actually agree to see no matter how many times Arielle begged him to see Inside Out or how many times Theo begged her to see Insidious: Chapter 3. They sat in the theatre at a safe distance with absolutely no pressure whatsoever. In fact, this was the least pressure Arielle has ever felt while seeing a movie with another person. She really enjoyed his company just as friends. It gave her great comfort after what happened earlier that evening with Stiles.

When they left the theatre, it was around 10 o'clock. Arielle mentioned that they should probably get her back home before her brother has a conniption. Laughing the whole way, he drove her back to her house. He pulled up right in front of her door step and she unbuckled her seatbelt, smiling at him.

"Thanks," she said.

"For what?" he asked.

"For… helping me feel better," she sighed, "I had a really shitty day and this was exactly what I needed."

"It's nice to be the one who helps out this time," he laughed.

She giggled and opened the door. "I'll see you later."

"I'll text you about studying later," he called as she closed the door and went up the doorstep.

That night, Arielle was almost afraid of what was coming in her sleep. But she had a dream about the ocean, the waves rising and falling, pushing her over and under the water several times. She could see the wide open sky and the reefs that lie beneath the surface. She was swimming and she was free. It was the best sleep she'd gotten in a week.

No sex dream. No problem.


	8. On a Cloud

Three quick knocks on the door and it was open in seconds. Theo looked all too pleased to see Arielle standing in front of his door, but Arielle was all too naïve to see that.

"You kept your promise, I see," Theo smiled.

"One should always keep promises," she said proudly, walking into the house as he stepped aside.

There wasn't much to Theo's house. In fact, it was very small. A one floor house in a pretty small neighborhood. There was a couch and a pretty okay TV set and a separate room for a kitchen and table. Her guess was there was a bedroom and bathroom in the back. It had all the necessities.

"Not much," he sighed, looking at his own house, "but it's a home. I hope once I get a better job I can probably get a new paint job and fix some of the squeaks in the floor. I might hang up a frame or two, but we'll see."

"I like it," she said, "Not a lot, but just enough. Some people underestimate a simple home."

In silence, they looked around until they accidentally caught each other's glare. Arielle cleared her throat.

"Shall we get started?" she said to ease the tension.

"Yeah," he said, walking over to the kitchen table where he had most of his stuff set up, "Now I'm gonna need some help with World History because I couldn't tell you a single thing about the Chinese Dynasties if my life depended on it."

"Great," she laughed, following him and taking the available seat next to him.

She started to flip through the pages of the book, looking for the section on the ancient chinese government system, but what stopped her was the page on Greek history. There was no way she couldn't stop and look for just a minute. Theo noticed.

"You like Greek Mythology?" he asked, observing how she was looking at a picture of a grecian urn depicting Poseidon.

"Let's just say I have a strong connection to it."

Arielle laughed and flipped the pages again, finding a picture of an herb in the hands of Zeus. Before she could even blink, Theo's hand was on the book, flipping the pages faster. "Chinese history, Arielle. That's what I need help with," he reminded her, "We can play with greek mythology later."

She sighed and gave him a smile, totally agreeing with him. However, on the inside, she was about to explode. She may have just found something groundbreaking for this mystery disease thing. When Theo got up to get them both a glass of water, she took out her phone, snapped a picture of the page as fast as she could, then put her phone away and switched the page back to the China section as quick as she could.

"Hey…" he said, sitting down at the table and pushing the glass of water to her, which she caught in her hand, "There's this rager happening at my friend's house. He's one year above you at Beacon Hills High. He and I are sort of co. hosting it. You wouldn't wanna come, would you?"

Arielle shrugged, looking into the water in her cup, "I don't know… ragers aren't really my thing."

"Oh really?" Theo said, raising an eyebrow, "A loud party with several opportunities to dance like crazy isn't really your thing?"

"If I tell you I'll think about it, can we get back to studying?" she asked.

He nodded, giving her a sly smile. "For sure."

As he continued to read about fallen dynasties, Arielle snuck a peek under the table at her phone, sending Scott, Kira, and Stiles the picture she took from Theo's textbook about the herb Zeus was holding in his hand. The picture was accompanied by one word: ambrosia.

After the study session was over, Arielle drove over to Kira's house. When Kira opened the door, Scott and Stiles were already there.

"What is this ambrosia?" Scott asked, "Isn't it like an herb or something?"

"I thought it was this weird fruit salad thing," Stiles muttered.

"That's one way to put it," Arielle said, marching into the house, "but it's basically an herb that was only consumed by the gods. The humans call it the food of the gods because it was said to cure almost any disease that struck the land."

"So you think this plant can heal the infected people who are still alive?" Kira asked.

Arielle shrugged. "It's a start."

"Good work," Scott said, patting his sister on the back, "Now where can we find this stuff?"

"Well you're tight with Poseidon, right?" Stiles said, trying to be funny, "Can't you just call him up?" Arielle rolled her eyes.

"I doubt it would grow anywhere around here in desert land," Kira remarked.

"But it does grow in some mountain ranges," Arielle responded, "One report said they found it in some location near Central California, a few hours away from here. I say we take a road trip up there to see if it's even there still."

Scott agreed. "It's worth a shot…"

"Yeah," Stiles affirmed, "I think we should go."

"Road trip!" Kira clapped.

"And speaking of going places together… Theo invited me to this party this weekend," Arielle requested, "You guys maybe don't wanna let me go alone?"

"A party? Seriously?" Scott judged.

"Oh come on!" Arielle whined, "It's summer vacation and all we've done is look after sick people. Can't we do something for ourselves for just one night before we get in too deep?" Arielle went up to Kira and grabbed her shoulders, "Let's go dance like crazy and get drunk and do silly things to each other's faces with washable markers."

"Is that really what you guys do when you have sleepovers?" Stiles inquired, a little too eager to hear the answer. Arielle glared at him.

Kira thought about it for a moment and considered how much she's actually done during the summer as far as seriously having fun. Loud parties weren't really her thing, but the last time they went to a rager like that was the night Scott protected her all night and stayed incredibly close to her. It was probably the first time she started really liking him in the first place. Maybe she might have the same feeling this time. Plus, she wasn't going to let Arielle go to Theo's party by herself. That went against every girl rule ever.

"Okay," Kira groaned, "but only because the rules tell me so."

"The rules?" Scott and Stiles asked, completely taken off guard.

"Yeah," Arielle answered, "Girls stick together in situations that might seem dangerous."

"Whoa, whoa," Stiles snapped, "This might be dangerous? How? Will there be predatory men there? Or predatory women, I don't judge. And who's even gonna drive you home if you're both gonna get drunk? Scott, we're going."

Arielle waited in anticipation all day the next day, then could hardly sleep before it was Saturday morning. She and Kira went to Target, finding the cheapest and sleaziest outfit they could find for Arielle. Kira wasn't that concerned about it. She was planning on wearing leggings and a shirt that has a fat animal on it that says "party animal". Arielle wasn't going to push it. Asking her to go in the first place was big enough request in the first place. By the time night fell, Arielle stepped out of her bathroom wearing a white top that shouldn't even be considered a top. It was white and made of padded soft fabric. It looked more like an upscale bra than a cheap top. Beneath her midriff were a pair of metallic pink skin-tight spandex shorts. Then her freshly shaved legs went down to her ankles and her feet were planted in some blue and white tie-dyed sneaker wedges.

"Whoa," Kira gulped, eyes wide and tad bit overwhelmed.

"You like?" Arielle boasted, turning around, never feeling better in her own skin (quite literally).

"Tell me that's not for Theo," Kira hoped.

"No!" Arielle said, touching the blue pendant on her neck, "It's for Stiles!"

Kira took a big sigh of relief. "Okay good… this is good, right?"

"God, I hope it is," Arielle groaned, "If he doesn't ravish me on the spot, there is something seriously wrong with him."

"Now I'M the one a little grossed out…" Kira said, cringing.

"Sorry," Arielle said, twirling her hair around her finger.

She threw on a white t-shirt over her "shirt", just in case Melissa or Agent McCall were in eye-shot between her bedroom door and the front door. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw Scott and Stiles sitting on the couch watching TV. It took a little time before they finally got up and left the house, which wasn't exactly what Arielle was hoping for at first, but the night was only just beginning.

Scott and Kira took Kira's car and Stiles and Arielle hoped into the jeep. The second the door closed, Stiles took his key out from his pocket and started to fumble with it as he placed it into the ignition. The second the car turned on and started humming, Arielle tore off her shirt and tossed it into the back seat of the car. Stiles paused and frowned, keeping his focus back onto the road.

Kira was about to turn on her car as she watched Stiles and Arielle drive away, but Scott stopped her by placing his hand on her shoulder.

"Promise me you'll be really careful tonight," he said.

Kira rolled her eyes. "You have to stop worrying so much about me. In case you haven't forgotten, in case I get in trouble, I have a lethal weapon wrapped around my pants."

"I know, but I just can't help but think sometimes…"

He paused, not exactly sure what to say at this point. Kira leaned closer to him.

"What?"

"Well… You could have died down there if Isaac hadn't found you."

Kira reached across to his side of the car and kissed him, pressing her forehead against him while she smiled. "I would have found you anyway…"

It wasn't long before both cars were on the road, Arielle and Stiles not too far ahead of Scott and Kira. Meanwhile, Arielle was doing anything and everything she could to try and get her boyfriend's attention.

"Stiles…" Arielle said, looking at him as they drove down the road, even though he wouldn't look back at her, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

He subtly reached over and grabbed her hand, still not looking at her. "Yeah, you look great, babe," he finally said casually. Again, not at all what she wanted. She sat back in the car seat and sulked until they reached the warehouse with the loud music, neon lights, and stench of alcohol oozing from it.

The four of them walked up the platform, which looked like it used to be an old loading dock of some kind, and went deeper into the party. Every person was covered in body art and extremely close to each other. Arielle instantly lit up when Theo walked towards her. She jumped into his arms and he picked her up, spinning her around.

"You made it!" he shouted with happiness.

"Consider it one hell of a study break," Arielle cheered.

"Or one hell of an outfit," he said in awe, taking her hands in his as he scanned her up and down, "You look stunning and SO ready for this party."

Arielle jumped in excitement, then turned to her friends, holding onto Theo's arm.

"You remember my big brother, Scott, his girlfriend Kira, and my boyfriend." She let go of Theo's arm and returned back to Stiles's side, resting her chin on his shoulder as she looked up at him and planted a small kiss on his cheek.

"Yeah! Stiles," Theo said, holding out his hand, "How could I ever forget Stiles? She talks about you all the goddamn time. It's nice to finally meet you guys when I'm not heavily medicated in a hospital bed."

Stiles smiled at Theo, then looked at Arielle. "You want me to get you a drink?"

"Be careful, bro," Theo cautioned, "You don't wanna leave this one alone for too long. Someone might snatch her up."

Arielle shook her head and laughed, "It's okay, Theo. I would love a drink. Thank you, baby."

Stiles let go of her without giving her any sign of affection and headed towards the bar. Kira started to lead Scott in the same direction, but he was still staring at Theo as Arielle now clung to his side.

"Don't worry," Theo assured him, "I'll take her to get her body painted and then we'll head over to the dancefloor. She couldn't be in more careful hands."

"Isn't he the best?" Arielle smiled.

Theo finally reached down and took her hand, leading her to the corner by the dance floor where one girl was finishing painting a guy's chest. Arielle was more than happy to be by Theo's side. It was a platonic love situation they had going on at this point. She trusted him and he was now showing her this whole new world she never would have experienced in Arizona. It was intoxicating and fun.

He picked up a paintbrush and looked at the different options around him.

"What's your favorite of the four elements?" he asked.

She frowned. "That's an odd question."

"It's better than what's your favorite color," he laughed.

Arielle nodded. "Water. Water's my favorite element."

"Of course it is," he said, tapping her nose with his finger, causing her to burst into uncontrollable giggles.

He dipped the brush in the neon blue paint and started to brush it against her skin, causing shivers to run up her spine as she felt the cold paint and rough brush on her stomach. Theo noticed her body growing tense so he placed his hand on the small of her back, tracing small circles there. He brought his lips to her ear and whispered, "Relax… I'll take care of you…"

Arielle rolled her eyes, "You're talking like that already and I haven't even had one drink yet."

"Trust me, I've had a few," he chuckled.

"Can you get me a few?" Arielle asked.

With a sly and devilish grin, he nodded and said, "Absolutely."

Theo walked over to the bar, seeing Stiles, the lonely boyfriend, sitting at the bar by himself with a cup in his hand. He wished he could walk over there and punch him in the face for not realizing how lucky he has it. He wanted to rub it in his face that he knew Arielle was having sex dreams about him and then he wanted to take her in his arms and found out how flexible she really is. The song changed and the crowds started cheering, including Arielle, who was still waiting for him with a paintbrush in hand. He looked around to see if her brother and Kira were around, but they were out on the dance floor, Scott trying to stay sober while his girlfriend was losing her mind after so many drinks. Theo chuckled, not only because it was a hilarious sight, but also Arielle's brother was out of the way and distracted. Perfect.

Theo took a cup filled to the brim and brought it back to Arielle.

"Libations for the lady," he said, handing it to her.

"Thank you," she said, immediately beginning to chug most of it down. When she took the cup away from her lips, she spazzed and blinked several times, "Woo!"

Theo brought his hand to hers and gently took the paintbrush from her hands, "Now relax…"

She brought the cup to her lips and drank some more, her mind getting number and number. As he ran his fingers gently over her the skin of her stomach, causing her whole body to give in and ride the wave that was coming over her as she downed more and more of that drink.

By the time she had waves painted all over her body, she also had three more drinks and was on the dance floor with Theo. It was clear that she was just as drunk as her best friend, who was grinding up on her boyfriend. When she caught sight of them, she frowned and drank more.

"What's the matter?" Theo asked, instantly noticing her sudden sad face.

Arielle started moving to the song that was playing, shaking her head, letting her now damp hair fly free.

"Nothing," she denied, "Just dance with me."

"Uhh I am," he laughed.

"No!" she argued, stepping closer to him, "I mean, closer." She took his hands and placed them on her body, helping his hands squeeze her sides. "Like this…"

"Ah," Theo nodded, "That I can do."

Both of them were fairly intoxicated, Arielle by far was more drunk than Theo, but he knew exactly what he was doing. Their bodies were pressed together, swaying deep and hard against each other to the music in the middle of the crowd. They were so hidden in the sea of people that not even Scott himself would be able to find her. He knew this and took advantage of the situation.

He moved his hand down lower on her body to squeeze her ass, also pressing his forehead against hers. Then he kissed her. She kissed him back (probably because she was so drunk). It was sloppy and wet, but they were both VERY into it. One of his hands was still on her ass, while the other felt up her spine, peaking underneath the back of her "shirt". Her hands were clawing at the sides of his shirt, taking a bit of the material in her hand. His eyes opened slightly to see the nearest pillar in the room. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Something wrong?" Arielle asked, her speech a little slurred and her lip gloss smeared all over her face.

"All of this is wrong," he growled. He took her hand in his and lead her to that pillar, pushing her up against it, causing her to happily gasp. "That's why I can't stop."

They kissed again, really going at each other, as though they wanted more even though there wasn't anything left to get. She placed her hands on his chest and let go of the kiss for one second, moving her hand down and biting her lip.

"Do you know what I wanna do?" she giggled, feeling her way to the hem of his shirt and onto his bare chest, "I wanna paint you."

Fair enough, he thought, since she was totally drunk off her ass at this point. She took his hand, cheering with excitement as she lead him to the painting station. She took the paintbrush with red on it. He grinned and took his shirt off, revealing his perfect chest. Almost instantly, she placed her brush on his skin.

"What are you making?" Theo asked.

"Shhh…" she said against his neck, "Trust me… Relax…"

He laughed and decided to shut up and let her do her thing.

Stiles was staring into a drink at the bar, thinking he was going to down it, but immediately started to regret it, so it just sat there in a red solo cup, ripples forming in it to the beat of the bass. His trance was interrupted by the feel of Scott's hand tapping his shoulder.

"Hey," Scott warned, looking directly at Theo and Arielle, standing incredibly close to each other while they both smiled while she painted red and orange flames on his chest, "What's going on over there?"

Stiles looked from his drink to Theo and Arielle, not realizing it was Theo and Arielle at first until he did a double take, not saying anything at first, but rather, watching it happen.

"I don't know…" he finally said.

"He's obviously flirting with her," Kira said bluntly, causing both Stiles and Scott to glare at her, "What? He totally is. Can't you tell?"

"I didn't even know he was into her like that," Stiles confessed, looking back at him, watching him put his hands on something that wasn't his, "I'm still not even sure who this guy is. I mean, who is he? Does he even go here?"

"Well while you've been working on your relationship with your laptop computer, Arielle's been with Theo and the more time they spend together, the more obvious it is that you could cut their sexual tension with a knife," Kira stressed, "So if I were you, I would get over there and do something about it."

As if she had dropped the mic, Kira took a shot glass and downed one shot before turning her attention away from the boys, trying to figure how to not let her eyes water after that one.

"Shit…" Stiles whispered, "Is that really what's been going on?"

"You didn't even notice," Scott added, "Not even once."

"And that's why she stormed out of my house the other day," Stiles finished.

Stiles looked at Scott seriously, trying to figure out if he actually meant what he said or not. Scott's face didn't seem to change, so Stiles assumed he was being 100% serious. He slammed the counter and got up, walking towards where Theo and Arielle were. He placed his hand on Arielle's shoulder. She spun around and immediately gasped.

"Stiles!" she shouted, then looked between Theo and Stiles several times, her face suddenly sinking, "Uh oh…"

"Yeah, uh oh," Stiles said, looking directly at Theo and taking his girlfriend's hand, "Are you okay?"

Arielle nodded, "Uh huh. Theo's taking care of me like he promised Scott and we're having SO much fun! Look! Fire and water!" She poked his body, then indicated the waves on her own body, laughing at her own metaphor.

"I see that," he told her, "but we have to go now, so say goodbye to your friend."

"Oh no!" Arielle pouted, "Do we HAVE to?"

"Arielle, you're drunk," Stiles said, fixing her already messy damp hair.

"Come on, dude," Theo argued, stepping next to Arielle, "If she wants to stay, she can stay."

"See, I don't trust you, so I'm not leaving my girlfriend with you," Stiles spat.

"You're right…" Theo said, "You shouldn't trust me."

Stiles walked closer to Theo intently, both of them glaring at each other.

"Stop! Stop!" Arielle panicked, barely able to form words, "Let's go. Come on, Stiles. Take me home. It's okay."

"Seriously?" Theo scoffed, "There's no way that guy's better looking than me."

Stiles looked at Arielle, then patted Theo on the shoulder before backing up. Arielle took Stiles's hand and started to leave, but she turned back and waved with a sort of sad expression.

As Theo waved back, he felt the disappointment and anger bubbling up inside of him.

"You're gonna regret that, Stilinski…"


	9. The Back Seat

When the car pulled up to Stilinski's house, Stiles had to help get Arielle out of the car, who was still giggling and stumbling around. At this point, he was already pleased he made it this far. The door slid open and Stiles pulled Arielle into the door

"Son," the sheriff said, crossing his arms, "You do know it's three in the morning, right?"

"Hey dad..." Stiles nodded, keeping Arielle behind him to hide this now uncomfortable situation, "Yeah… it's too late for Arielle to head home. She doesn't wanna wake her parents… but don't worry, we weren't out partying or anything."

The sheriff raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "You know the rules, son.." he finally said, pausing to look at the girl who was peeking out from behind his son's shoulder. She was obviously heavily intoxicated. Normally, he would automatically do something about it without hesitation, but this was Arielle he was looking at, the girl who meant so much to his son. This was the first time he's ever seen her like this. He sighed. "She's always welcome here," the sheriff added, "While I don't exactly prefer three in the morning, we're always here for her. I'm sure sleeping arrangements won't be an issue."

"Thanks Sheriff," Arielle beamed, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he said, walking up the stairs, "You kids have fun… but not TOO much fun. I'm still a sheriff and a dad."

Stiles pretended to laugh as if the idea of that was simply ridiculous. Once they heard the door to his room close, the Stiles let out a sigh of relief. He threw his hands into his hair in frustration.

"That was way too close," Stiles breathed.

"Well…" Arielle cooed, rubbing his shoulders slowly, "He did say we could have fun…"

He frowned at her, mostly because her breath stunk horribly. "Arielle, you're drunk. Not to mention, my dad is upstairs. That's not gonna happen."

Arielle threw her head on his shoulder. "This is frustrating."

As slightly annoying as taking care of a drunk person is, Stiles had to remember that this wasn't just any drunk girl. This was his girlfriend; someone he truly cares about. He slowly wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back to relax her as she reciprocated the hug, a pouty expression on her face. He looked down at her, only seeing her mess of dark hair blocking him from his view of her face. "Come on, let's get you to sleep."

"Okay," she agreed quietly.

Stiles carefully lead her towards the couch and sat her down there, making sure she didn't fall over sideways after landing.

"I'll get you a blanket," he said, "Don't move."

"Wait!" Arielle protested, "I'm not going to bed with you?"

"Right now, this is what's best," he said, going into a closet and pulling out a soft blanket and a pillow.

Arielle was honestly too drunk to say anything else, even though she was very upset on the inside. She rested her head on the pillow that Stiles left for her and then he put the blanket over her. She closed her eyes and adjusted herself so she was comfortable. Stiles took a sigh of relief and was about to head up the stairs when he heard Arielle mutter something.

"Theo wouldn't have said no…"

Before Stiles could comment, she was asleep.

The next morning, Stiles took Arielle home, not saying anything to her out of respect for her pulsing hangover that rung through her body. The last thing she needed was the sound of a human voice making her headache even worse. Arielle arrived at her house and almost ran up the stairs, closing her door quietly and falling into bed, sleeping for another 5 hours. By the time she woke up from that, it was 1pm and she was starting to get hungry. Scott suggested that she go pick up some lunch for the family if she's feeling any better, so she got in the car and started to drive to the diner to get some to-go food.

After she gave her order at the counter, she leaned against it, tapping her fingers on the pink plastic table top. She looked around the place wasn't even surprised at all when she saw who was looking at her from one of the booths. She sighed and walked over to him.

"Hey…" she said quietly, folding her hands in front of her.

"Hey you," he said with a sly grin, "How's that hangover?"

"Rough," she answered with a laugh.

"Did you go back to Stiles's house?" he asked anxiously.

"Yeah, I did…" she said quietly, "I mean, I assumed as much when I woke up on his couch with a blanket over me while Stiles was upstairs in his bed sound asleep."

Theo raised his eyebrows. "You guys are sleeping on separate floors now? Harsh."

"Yeah…" she nodded, "I guess you could say there's trouble in paradise."

He sighed and pat the spot next to him in the booth, "Well you still got me if you're ever lonely."

"I appreciate it," she said casually, sitting next to him, "So how was your night?"

"Pretty chill," he said with a nod, "I stayed afterwards to clean up. Thankfully, the cops never showed up, so that's a huge relief. I've also been here for a while watching hungover kids come in and out of this place."

Arielle laughed, "That must be quite the sight."

"It's hilarious," he nodded, "I didn't have that much to drink, so I've come out completely unscathed."

"You know, I know someone in my chem class last year who NEVER gets hungover. No matter how drunk she is the night before, she prides herself on never getting hungover."

"That's a goddamn lie," Theo laughed, "There's no way. She probably has like small headaches or something the morning after. Everyone gets hungover."

"She probably wouldn't even classify headaches as a hangover. More like party aftershock."

"Party aftershock? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of in my entire life."

"Right? Personally, I think she only pretends to be more drunk than she actually is, which is why she never seems to be hungover."

Theo raised his eyebrows. "Good sleuthing there."

"Thanks," Arielle giggled, flipping her hair over her shoulder, "I only do it all the time."

"You guys are seriously good at this stuff," he complimented.

They both chuckled and sighed together, leaving a brief moment of silence between them before Arielle finally spoke up again.

"I wanna thank you for a great night, Theo," she said quietly, "You said you'd take care of me and you did. Keeping a promise is kind of a big thing for me so... thanks for keeping yours."

"I told you," he said, his thumb gently rubbing against the bare skin of her shoulder, "You couldn't be in more careful hands…"

Before Arielle could even think of responding, Theo was leaning in, actually kissing her. She frowned, keeping her eyes open as she backed away, pushing him with her hand on his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Theo looked around and scooted in closer, which wasn't exactly what Arielle wanted. "I just… really wanted to kiss you again.

"Again?" Arielle asked, then gasped when she had figured it out, "Oh no. What did I do…"

Theo paused and looked down, backing up so he was up against the window. "You don't remember a thing, do you," he said, crossing his arms.

"The last thing I remember is that we were drinking by the paint station," she said quickly, trying to gather any other information she could, "That's it."

"Huh…" he said, shaking his head as he looked at the table, "I just thought that, since things are rough between you and Stiles plus what happened last night means that-."

"No..." she finished.

"Oh come on," Theo argued, "We both know you're unhappy with him. He doesn't even know the first thing about being good to you. Meanwhile, I'm here and I've already proven to you that I keep my promises to you."

Arielle shook her head. "I love Stiles," she whispered.

"No you don't…" he said deeply, moving towards her again.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, pushing herself away from him. "Yes I do… and I'm deeply sorry for making it seem like I had feelings for you… but I don't…" She paused and looked at the ground, squeezing her hands together in her lap. "I should go…"

"No, you shouldn't," Theo insisted, watching Arielle scoot out of the booth and stand up.

"I really should," she demanded, walking towards the counter to pick up her lunch before leaving. Whatever happened between her and Theo was now over. At least Arielle could go on this road trip with a clear conscious… somewhat.


	10. Trail Blazers

Everyone gathered at the McCall house the morning of the road trip to find the ambrosia. There were two cars, Kira's and Arielle's. Stiles would have argued to take his jeep if it didn't kill gas so easily. In order to avoid ripping each other's throats out, which is what everyone wanted to believe instead of the fact that it's weird between Stiles and Arielle, the trip was divided into three legs. The first leg had Scott in Arielle's car and Stiles in Kira's car. After a quick rest stop, Scott would drive his sister's car with Stiles while Arielle switched over to Kira's car. After few hours of some best friend bonding and a stop to get snacks, the final leg of the trip would have Scott in Kira's car and Stiles in Arielle's car. Everyone had their schedules and the locations of the rest stops along with a small bag with a change of clothes and all the travel necessities.

The first leg of the trip started from the house and onto the freeway towards the mountain ranges in between Southern and Central California. It was almost thirty minutes into the trip before Scott finally decided to say something to his sister in the driver's seat.

"So…" he sighed, "You and Stiles?"

"Can we not?" Arielle begged, rolling her eyes, "I really would love to talk about anything else."

"Okay, good," Scott agreed, "We won't talk about it… yet."

"How are things with Kira?" Arielle inquired quickly before the subject of her broken relationship was brought up.

Scott, taken a little aback by this question, actually sat back and started to think. "I'm sure everything's great," he finally answered, "I think…"

"You think?" Arielle asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Well yeah," he shrugged, "I mean, we haven't complained about anything, but something's just… different. She doesn't look at me the same. Again, it's not bad, but it's just different then how she used to look at me before, you know? And she used to laugh at everything I say, now she kinda rolls her eyes most of the time."

"You think her feelings are fading away?"

"No, not at all. If they were, I feel like I'd know… I guess the honeymoon phase doesn't last forever, no matter how long you try to keep it around. Sooner or later you're going to have to learn to live with another person breathing down your neck all the time. Comes with being in a long term relationship, I suppose. Sure, you still care more than ever, but it's not all chocolates and flowers and romantic moments all the time."

"Hmmmm," Arielle contemplated, "That's an interesting thought."

"I'm glad you thought so, because I sort of reassured myself just now."

Arielle frowned at her brother, then laughed at him.

"So Stiles?" Scott asked, giving her the puppy dog face.

"Wow!" Arielle gasped, "That was a whole minute and ten seconds before you brought up Stiles."

"What can I say? I'm a humble guy who likes to listen to your problems."

"Sure you do," Arielle scoffed, "You just wanna hear the dirt."

"That too," he shamefully said.

Arielle sighed, squeezing the wheel of the car tighter. "How can you talk about something when you're not even sure exactly what's going on…"

"Do you think you're gonna break up with him?"

Arielle let those words resonate in her head for just a little bit, but then she shook her head, rejecting any impulse related to that.

"No," she finally said, "I love him. I don't wanna break up with him."

"So what's the problem?"

She paused again before speaking. "I think he's pretty much done with me."

"What? No way! That's ridiculous!"

"There's no way you wanna break up with her," Kira scolded Stiles while he was in the passenger seat of her car, "Something else has gotta be up."

"I've got a lot on my plate, alright?" Stiles defended.

Kira shook her head, "It's more than that. Arielle tells me everything and this isn't like you. You'd probably procrastinate on your research once or twice if it meant giving her your attention. At the very least, you would include her on it, especially if it has to do with Greek Mythology. You wouldn't just shut her out completely, so what's going on?"

"I'm sorry if I'm a little hesitant to tell you because you're Arielle's best friend," Stiles argued, "How do I know you're not gonna tell her?"

"I can keep a secret," she assured him, "If anything, if I know what's going on, I can keep her from thinking you don't love her anymore."

"She thinks that…?" he muttered.

Kira shrugged.

Stiles didn't want Arielle to think that he didn't love her. Of course he loved her. Nothing has changed for him since he gave her that necklace she's wearing around her neck at this very moment. He started to question how this could have happened, but decided telling Kira was the best thing to do, that way Arielle could have a little reassurance.

"Alright, fine!" he said, "You know how I promised to do better this Summer? Well I wanted to do something for her that would be really memorable, or at least something she would love a lot… so I'm getting the safe house ready for us. It's supposed to be a week long trip, just the two of us."

"Awwww!" Kira cheered.

"And that's why she hasn't been in my room forever, because literally everything I need to make this happen is up there," he explained.

"Awwww!" Kira cheered again, a little louder this time.

"But you seriously can't tell her," Stiles demanded.

"Why would I want to spoil a surprise that great!?" Kira chimed.

Stiles sighed and sat back in his chair, hoping with all his might that Kira wouldn't say anything to her on the second leg of the trip. Thankfully, Kira was doing a really good job with Arielle in the passenger seat now. It was difficult because all she was doing was complaining about Stiles.

"And if you're boyfriend's making you feel like shit," Arielle continued, "How can you not gravitate towards someone else, right?"

"Especially someone with muscles like Theo," Kira said, shaking her head.

"He has these abs that are just so unreal," Arielle marveled, "but I love Stiles, right?"

"Right," Kira nodded, a little proud of herself for making good on her deal with Stiles.

"But I kissed Theo…"

"You WHAT!?" Kira exclaimed, hitting the brakes on the car in the open road as Stiles and Scott kept driving forward, "Arielle!"

"I know…" Arielle trembled, "Apparently it happened at the party when I was drunk off my ass so he decided it was good idea to go for seconds when I was at the diner yesterday…"

"Oh my god," Kira muttered, "You can't tell Stiles."

"Kira!" Arielle whined.

"You CAN'T," she warned, "If you're worried about something breaking between the two of you, telling him is only going to make that definite. You love Stiles."

"I do."

"Not Theo."

"Right."

"Theo was a drunken mistake."

"Exactly."

"So there's nothing to discuss."

"But I wanna be honest with him…" Arielle complained.

"You can't," Kira warned again.

"But Theo…" she contemplated, "Theo… listens…"

"So?" Kira asked, "There's more to a relationship than just listening."

"I know, but he's already doing WAY better than Stiles," Arielle whined, "Stiles has been neglecting me."

"and it's starting to get on her nerves," Scott said, driving Arielle's car with Stiles in the passenger seat, "Someone should tell you before it's too late."

"You know, you and Kira both," Stiles sighed, "You think I'm being stupid?"

"Do you want me to be honest?"

"Yeah."

"I think you're being incredibly stupid."

Stiles frowned and looked at his best friend, "Hurtful."

"I know, but someone has to tell you," Scott explained, "You don't have to do all this if it means neglecting her."

"But I do have to do all of this," Stiles argued, "Because if I don't do a big gesture to tell her I love her, then I might lose her… and that's what scares me the most, you know? Like how am I, a pale awkward kid with social anxiety, supposed to keep around a girl as perfect as her?"

Scott shrugged, "I don't know… but you're an idiot for thinking you can do it by yourself. You've got Kira and I, her brother and best friend, to help you. You won't save anyone if you think you can do it single handedly."

He nodded. "Yeah…"

The next leg of the trip started after a quick stop for gas. Scott was in Kira's car and Stiles was in Arielle's car. With only a little ways to go until a motel right at the base of the mountain range, both couples were absolutely silent, not saying a single thing to each other, but it wasn't because they couldn't talk to each other. In fact, there were so many things they wanted to say to each other. Scott wanted to tell Kira that if she was feeling like things had changed as well, that it would be okay because they would find a way to fix it together. Meanwhile, Kira wanted to tell Scott that it didn't matter if things were different between them, as long as she had him by her side, then that would be enough for her. In the car in front of them, Arielle wanted to tell Stiles everything. She wanted to tell him she kissed Theo, she wanted to tell him about her sex dreams about him, she wanted to apologize for coming on too strong sometimes, she also wanted to tell him she misses him. Next to her, Stiles was staring at the open road and all he wanted to tell Arielle was that he loves her. But alas, no one said anything.

Both cars pulled up to the motel very late in the evening. Scott and Arielle went into the main lobby to check in and get keys to rooms. Kira approached Stiles, who was leaning against the back of Arielle's car.

Curiously, Kira said, "If you want to stay with Arielle tonight, I can make that happen."

Stiles, surprisingly happy, replied, "Could you? I've been trying to get the balls to say something to her, but I just can't do it. Maybe I can if I just have more alone time with her."

"Sure…" Kira nodded, "I'm kinda glad, though. I think I'd be too jealous if you were the one in bed with Scott instead of me."

"You mean every night before I showed up?" Arielle sassed, walking towards Kira with a key.

"Ha ha," Scott said, walking over to Arielle and messing up her hair. After she shot him a disapproving glare, Scott looked at Stiles and held up the key, "Let's go, bro."

"Actually," Kira interjected, "Would it be alright if we switched up the arrangement?"

Both Scott and Arielle raised their eyebrows. Even Stiles looked a little surprised for effect.

"Oh…" Scott shrugged, "Okay, sure."

It was pretty obvious that Kira meant the couples staying in the same room rather than the siblings staying together. It was a well known fact that putting the McCall siblings in the same bed was only going to end in kicking each other and one stealing more of the sheets from the other, which would just end up in a big old classic brother/sister fight. So Scott grabbed Kira's hand and lead her up the metal stairs to their room. Stiles gestured for Arielle to go ahead of him and they followed in the same direction.

When Stiles and Arielle reached their room, Arielle sneakily let Stiles go in first. She picked up the "Do Not Disturb" sign from the table next to the door and hung it on the door knob, biting her lower lip as she slowly closed the door.


	11. Incubus

After Arielle pushed the door closed, she looked down at her shirt and groaned, annoyed at how it wasn't showing enough of her chest. She pushed her breasts up just a little more for emphasis.

"I'm taking the side away from the window," Stiles said, "You know how I hate to sleep facing the window."

She turned around, her boobs out and a smile on her face. "Of course," she answered, walking quickly up to him as his back was to her, opening up his suitcase and looking for his toothbrush, "This is nice… just the two of us with one night alone..."

Stiles stood up straight, frowning at her as she rubbed his shoulders gently. "Scott and Kira are right over there."

Arielle shook her head, rejecting the idea. "Let's not think about them."

She started to place small kisses on his neck, up to his cheek and closer to his ear. She pulled back and looked at him, that sparkle in her eye that he hadn't seen in so long. It was so tempting to kiss her back, but there was a reason Stiles was looking for his toothbrush so quickly before. Arielle leaned in to kiss him, but he placed his finger on her lips, stopping her.

"I really need to find my toothbrush…" he said in complete and total fear, knowing exactly that this wasn't what she wanted to hear at all.

Arielle groaned and turned away from him, walking to her suitcase and opening it.

"Hey," Stiles said, "I'm sorry."

"I'm going to sleep," she said, finding her pajamas and slamming her suitcase shut.

He didn't wanna argue with her so he didn't say anything else. Arielle changed into the pajamas that Stiles knew were her favorite; the ones that said "Oh my gatos" on the t-shirt with rainbow cats on the shorts. When she changed, she climbed into bed on the side closest to the window. She set up a pillow in the middle of the bed and laid on her side facing away from his side of the bed. Once she turned the light out, she was asleep. Stiles climbed in next to her and tried to push the pillow away, but the more he tried, the further away she moved from him. Soon he realized it was futile and he looked at her sadly before turning out his own lamp and going to sleep.

Hours later, Arielle thought she had trouble sleeping. It felt like restlessness as she turned over in the bed. When she finally relaxed, it was only because of the arms that held her tightly to his chest, stroking her arm with his thumb. She still couldn't sleep, but it felt a little better.

"Can't sleep?"

Arielle looked up at the man who was holding her and suddenly felt numb when she saw it was Theo. She gasped and tried to move, but she couldn't.

"It's okay…" he assured her, "It's because of him, isn't it?"

Theo turned his head and revealed Stiles, lying next to them, his mouth covered with tape as his hands and feet were tied together, bound to the bed.

"Don't worry," Theo whispered, "I can silence the distraction…"

He got out of bed, leaving Arielle limp and lying flat on her back, her head turned towards Stiles, their eyes meeting as he tried to break free. She could see the tears running down his cheeks. She wanted to say or do something, but she was physically incapable of even forming an expression on her face. Theo appeared, kneeling beside Stiles. He brought his index finger to his lips and hushed both Arielle and Stiles before grazing the knife against Stiles's throat, causing a trail of blood to fall to the sides of his neck and onto the bed. Finally, Arielle screamed.

Her own scream woke her up with a gasp again. She sat up instantly and ran her fingers through her hair, breathing heavily, trying to catch her breath and come back to reality. She looked at Stiles, who was still asleep beside her. She was confused as to whether or not that dream was distressing or aggravating. There were so many things running through her mind. Being in bed next to Stiles wasn't helping, especially in that stuffy motel room. The clock next to him read "4:00am." Some people got up at 4am sometimes, so she crawled out of bed and grabbed a robe from her suitcase, leaving the room and closing the door behind her to watch the little bit of light peeking out from the horizon line.

Stiles woke up seconds later, feeling that something was wrong. He turned his head and saw the pillow that was between them still there, but on the other side of the pillow, there were only pushed back sheets and a ruffled pillow; no Arielle.

He looked in the bathroom, but there was no sign of her. He opened the door to the room and saw her there, leaning against the black metal railing with her hair somehow perfectly falling down her back and her arms crossed, staring at the horizon. He walked up next to her, not looking at her, but just watching the same thing she was watching. Just to be there for her. He couldn't help himself, however, from glancing down at what was in her hand, dangling over the railing. It was the pendant he gave her at the start of the summer.

"You okay…?" he asked quietly. She looked at him, eyes tired and frustrated. "You're not wearing your necklace…"

She took the pendant in her hand and looked at it against her palm. She touched it gently with her other index finger and sighed.

"This was given to me as a promise," she answered, "A promise that hasn't been kept."

"Arielle-."

"You said you weren't going to look back on this vacation telling yourself that you were awful to me because you kept ignoring me," she reminded, "but since this whole disease hit, you have done nothing but ignore me."

"It wasn't on purpose," he defended.

"Probably not," Arielle agreed, "You were just too stupidly oblivious and blinded by pointless research."

He started to get just a little angry after hearing that comment. "So you sought comfort with another guy?" Stiles asked.

"Theo and I are just friends," Arielle argued, "and don't put this on me."

"Why shouldn't I? You know, this whole time I've been getting a lot of shit thrown at me from you, Kira, and Scott. I cannot count the number of times I've been told I'm an idiot on two hands. For once, let's not pretend like what's happening between us isn't your fault too. We all know I'm an idiot, but what about you? Do you have feelings for Theo?"

"No!" Arielle spat, "I could NEVER have feelings for Theo."

"Don't lie to me," Stiles demanded, "You can't lie to me. You've never been able to before so don't start now."

"I'm telling the truth!"

"But something's off," he argued, "I can feel it… whenever it's not me, it's him, isn't it. I thought it was nothing until we went to that stupid party and you practically couldn't keep your hands off him, so don't tell me you don't have feelings for him because I know there is something between you-."

"He kissed me!" Arielle finally shouted, causing Stiles to step back.

"He… he what?"

"Theo kissed me," Arielle hissed, "and he only kissed me because he thought I had feelings for him, and he thought I had feelings for him because I kissed him at the party, and I only kissed him at the party because I was drunk to the point where I don't even remember doing it AND I was probably feeling alone and rejected because of YOU."

"So you're saying I drove you into his arms…"

"No… but every time I ever thought of Theo that way, the first person I wanted to be with was you."

"And that's supposed to make the fact that you kissed him twice okay!?"

"No!" she shouted in frustration, "Oh my god! Would you just LISTEN to me!?"

"You're loud and clear right now," Stiles bellowed, "You'd rather we break up so you can get me out of the way and once I'm gone, you can be with him without feeling so damn guilty. Is that it?!"

"That's not it AT ALL!" Arielle snapped, "I DON'T have feelings for Theo. I don't want to be with him. I don't wanna break up with you because I LOVE you!"

"I love you too!" he shouted back.

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Stiles grabbed Arielle's body and slammed her against the wall of their room, kissing her passionately and deeply, tugging gently at her hair as she kissed him back, grabbing onto his shirt, her strength almost causing a tear in it. There was no time for all this stupid fighting, he thought. They just told each other they love each other, as aggressive as it was. Life's too short. Meanwhile, Arielle was finally starting to feel complete again. There was more heat between them now then they've had since before the werepanther.

After fumbling to get the room key back in the door, Stiles threw the key inside and Arielle placed her necklace on the table next to the door and robe on the floor before he picked her up, her legs wrapping around him. He carried her back to the bed and threw her on it. She grabbed the pillow that was in between them and threw it out of the way, causing both of them to smile.

He climbed on top of her and kissed her as she adjusted underneath him. His hands started to run down her sides under her shirt, making her arch her back, which got him even more excited. Meanwhile, she could feel him, starting to get hard between her legs, which made her start to grind her hips against his, making him moan into her mouth. His hands made their way under her shirt to her bra, squeezing her breasts in his hand, moving his lips to her neck, groaning against her skin, the vibrations of his voice driving her crazy. After a small moan escaped her lips, he took the material of the shirt she was wearing and pulled it over her head, tossing it away. She tilted her head and watched the shirt fall with a distressed look. He noticed automatically and look at her sincerely.

"I love that shirt…" she said sadly.

Her worries instantly washed away when his lips met her breasts causing her to moan with delight. She grinned and grabbed his face in her hands, hungrily going for his lips again. His own shirt was up and off soon after while her fingers combed through his hair. One more kiss to her neck set her off. She pushed against his shoulder and he fell on the bed onto his back while she was on top of him, breathing heavily as she grinded against him. She kissed him again, moaning desperately for him. His hands instinctively touched her ass, helping her rock against him.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Both of them quickly turned their heads to the door, a look of panic on their faces.

"Maybe it's housekeeping?" he whispered.

"At four in the morning?" she whispered back.

Another knock on the door made them both a little jumpy.

"Arielle! Stiles!" Scott called.

Arielle rolled her eyes. "You know, I'm really over this whole sibling thing," she complained.

She started to move off of Stiles, but he kept his hand right where it was before.

"Hey, maybe he'll give up," he suggested quietly.

He lifted his head slightly and kissed her. Before the kiss could be any less than innocent, there was one final knock on the door. Arielle groaned and climbed off her boyfriend in frustration.

"What part of Do Not Disturb do you not understand!?" she yelled, both she and Stiles finding their shirts and putting them back on.

"Arielle! Open up!" Scott called again.

Arielle finally opened the door, whining, "This better be important."

When she laid eyes on Scott, she could see the instant worry in him. His whole body was trembling. He was terrified of something and she had not seen her brother so terrified of anything since she's known him.

"Kira's missing…"


	12. The Healer

Within minutes, Stiles and Arielle watched the sun rise while packing their stuff away into Arielle's car. Scott was already packed and ready to go much quicker than they were. Scott was leading in Kira's car, slamming his foot on the gas pedal while driving on the open road. Arielle was almost too overwhelmed to catch up to him. Arielle was squeezing the gear shift tightly as she pushed on the gas pedal. Stiles noticed her shaking hands and placed his hand gently on hers, rubbing her skin with him thumb. Instantly, she took a deep breath and relaxed.

"We'll find her..." he assured her.

"I know," she nodded, "I'm just not entirely sure how we're gonna get the ambrosia and save her before it's too late."

Stiles looked at the road in front of him, seeing Scott's car speeding in front of theirs. He made a sharp turn that was almost too quick to see.

"I don't think Scott's worried about the ambrosia anymore," Stiles said.

Arielle gasped and quickly jerked the wheel to the side, turning sharply and following her brother. She asked Stiles to pick up her phone and call Scott for her.

"I can't stop for the herb," Scott said on speaker phone, "I have to go back and get Kira."

"Scott, we won't have anything against whoever took her if we don't have that plant," Arielle argued, "and even if we turn back and manage to save her, half the town will be either infected or dead by the time we get back with a cure."

"Then I'll go alone if I have to," Scott grunted.

"I don't like those odds," Stiles pointed out.

"Okay, you know what? Let's just pull over and talk about this."

Both cars came to a sudden stop, making Stiles jump and catch his breath.

"You know, I hate it when you guys do that," he decided to point out even though he knew his determined girlfriend wasn't going to listen.

Arielle slammed the car doors and walked over to Scott, who looked stressed and freaked out to no end.

"Scott, calm down," she started.

"Calm down!?" Scott exclaimed, "How can I calm down!?"

"Getting angry isn't going to get you anywhere."

"I'm not angry! I've never been more worried in my entire life."

"Would you please just listen to me?"

"I can't. I have to go find her now."

"All of this is going to be useless if we don't have anything against whoever took her. We need to refocus and get the ambrosia if we want any kind of advantage in this fight."

"It'll be too late by the time we get back," Scott argued, "What if she's already dead by then?"

"Scott, stop worrying about it so much," Arielle said.

"Stop worrying!?" Scott roared, "How can I NOT be scared out of my mind right now!? If I don't go back there and protect her-."

"Why do you have to be so protective?" Arielle yelled back, "It's always 'be careful' and 'watch out' and 'be safe' all the time with you. And it's not just towards Kira, it's to me too. Every time I'm left alone, you show up. So what is it? Why do you feel the need to hover, huh? Why do you feel like this is your responsibility when it clearly isn't-."

"Because you're my sister and she's my girlfriend!"

"And your girlfriend could slice the entire town to ribbons if she wanted to. She can take care of herself."

Scott rolled his eyes, "Oh please! If it were Stiles, you'd go back for him with no questions asked."

"Please leave Stiles out of this," Stiles begged.

"No, I wouldn't," Arielle argued.

"Thanks babe," Stiles commented.

"I wouldn't go instantly if I didn't have anything that I knew could save him," Arielle explained, "If I knew he could take care of himself long enough for me to get something useful and come back, I would run faster than I've ever ran before in my entire life. So you have to trust that Kira can keep herself alive until we get back."

"No! I can't!" Scott shouted, "I can't fail again!"

"Again?" Arielle asked, stepping closer to her brother, "What are you talking about?

"I mean I've already failed you once," he sighed, "with the werepanther… I let you guys down and you almost died… and it was all my fault…"

Without even the slightest bit of hesitation, Arielle ran up and hugged her brother as tightly as she could. His body was shaking like he was a frightened puppy dog. That only made her want to squeeze him tighter. She squeezed her eyes shut and and nuzzled her face into his shoulder. She didn't want him to have to feel any pain. While she couldn't take it away like the werewolves can, this was the best she could do. Scott was surprised by this and slowly brought his arms around her to hug her back, rubbing her back gently. It didn't take away most of the worry, it did help him take a step back and breathe.

"You didn't lose us then and you're not gonna lose us now," Arielle assured him, "Like you always say, you can't save everyone alone. If you trust us to save ourselves, then you can stop blaming yourself."

"But what if something bad does happen and I'm not there to stop it?" he asked quietly.

"That's not gonna happen," she promised, "Kira and I are such badasses that you never have to worry about us. We survive. It's what we do."

"Our girlfriends are the baddest bitches on the block," Stiles added.

Scott and Arielle chuckled, but Scott sighed and moved Arielle away from him by her shoulders, looking apologetically into her eyes.

"I know…" he replied, "but I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't at least try."

With a thousand thoughts racing in his head, Scott kissed his sister's forehead and rushed back into his car, slamming the door again and speeding off in the direction towards Beacon Hills.

"Arielle?" Stiles called as she stood there, watching his car drive away.

She quickly turned around and got back into the driver's seat of the car. She turned the key in the ignition and Stiles, from the passenger seat, having heard everything that was just said between the brother and sister, couldn't help but be a little confused as to what was going to happen next.

"What are we doing?" he asked.

Arielle kept her hands on the wheel tightly, but was unable to think of where to go. The ambrosia or to her best friend. When she finally figured out what was the best decision, it still didn't feel 100% right for a lot of reasons, but she wanted to do it anyway.

"Something stupid," Arielle answered.


	13. Contaminated

Scott followed Kira's scent to the basement of the hospital; the floor underneath the morgue, which was a cramped, dark, and humid place which was only used to store the furnaces. He ran past the morgue and saw the double doors which lead to the stairs to get there. The doors swung open and Scott's heart started beating faster, his red eyes glowing. There, he saw two small creatures carrying swords. Their faces were similar to that of a rats, but their entire eyes glowed red and their teeth were razor sharp as well as the claws on their fingers. There was Kira, tied up behind them, struggling to break free.

"Kira!" Scott called.

Kira looked up and instantly shouted, "Scott! Watch out!"

The first creature sprung towards him, swinging his sword. Scott carefully ducked and stood up, roaring as he turned. It looked like it was going to be easy, so he charged towards them. Both the creatures were too quick on their feet and had a lot more strength than he gave them credit for. They were moving too fast around him that Scott had trouble seeing them.

Scott picked up the second creature with his hand, but the creature grabbed his arm and was able to throw him onto the ground, standing above him with a sword to his neck. Scott was just as shocked as Kira was. The two creatures shared a look at each other and grinned. The second creature began to open its mouth, a green liquid falling from it.

Suddenly, a flash of blue darted towards the creature standing over him and Scott turned around, trying to pick himself back up. He looked at the door and saw Arielle standing there, a ball of water floating above her hand. Stiles was next to her, carrying a metal baseball bat.

"Seriously?" Scott asked.

"Hey, if Kira and wield around a sword and survive, I can carry a bat," Stiles argued.

Arielle shrugged, "Believe me, it was a long conversation we had on the way home."

The ball in Arielle's hand froze and Arielle chucked it towards the creatures, both of them ducking, then exchanging another look to each other. They grinned at Arielle.

"Oceanid," they both hissed.

"Those guys are tiny…" Arielle mentioned.

"Don't be fooled," Scott said, as he picked himself up off the ground.

"What are those?" Stiles asked.

Arielle flashed her blue eyes at them, making everything blue in her vision except for the the bone structure of the two creatures

"Kallikantzaroi," Arielle answered.

Stiles frowned at her, but decided it probably wasn't important anyway.

Scott and Arielle charged towards the two creatures, each sibling taking on one creature. Scott would occasionally glance at his sister, watching her grab water straight from the air and use it to defend herself. It was definitely the humidity in the room that helped. Meanwhile, Stiles took his bat and started hitting the chains against the pillar Kira was tied to. The sound of the metal slapping together made both creatures look up at him. They exchanged another look so fast that Arielle and Scott barely saw them make the decision to go after Stiles. The creature fighting Arielle pushed her down with incredible force, making her fall on her back on the ground with a thud.

Stiles saw her and shouted out to her, but the creature grabbed his wrist, twisting them, making him cry out in pain. He fell to the floor, the creature standing over him, the green liquid falling from its sharp teeth. Arielle got up, rubbing her head. She saw her brother still fighting while the creature was standing over Stiles, the green liquid falling from its teeth and onto Stiles's skin.

"Bro that is disgusting," Stiles whined.

Arielle jumped up and ran her hand diagonally downwards in front of her body, a spear made of ice forming in her hand. Quickly, she jumped onto the creature and stabbed it in the heart, causing it to fall over. When it hit the floor, it turned into green dust and evaporated into the air. The only thing that didn't disappear was a black dagger, which fell to the ground. Arielle reached down and picked it up, examining an Ancient Greek letter written on it. In the same moment, Scott pushed through the other creature's heart and crushed it, letting it fall onto the ground and turn to green smoke as well.

"Stiles!" Arielle gasped, putting the dagger away and hovering over him and stroking his cheeks with her thumb, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "Help me up?"

She nodded and took his hand, helping to pull him up on his feet while Scott broke the chains with his claws. When she was released, she fell weak at her knees only to be caught by Scott. He picked her up in his arms and looked to Arielle and Stiles, who had their arms around each other.

"Go," Arielle told her brother, "Tell mom. We need to find out if she's infected."

Scott nodded back and rushed out of the room. Stiles frowned. Arielle could feel his disturbance and looked at him full of worry.

"I'm okay," he reassured her, "Let's go."

They met Scott and Kira in the ER, Kira sitting up on one of the beds. Melissa was prying her eyes open and looking into them with a flashlight.

"Follow the light," Melissa asked gently.

"I'm okay," Kira said, "It was just a little stuffy in there, that's all."

"You don't feel weak or tired?" Scott asked.

"No," Kira shook her head, "They barely touched me. I swear, I'm okay."

"Mom," Scott said urgently, "Can you at least keep her here for the night and see if she develops any symptoms."

"Scott, it's fine," Kira halted, squeezing his hand, "I'm not infected. I think I'd know by now if I was."

"See? I told you she can take care of herself," Arielle boasted.

Scott messed up his sister's hair with his hand, "Does that explain why you're here, little sister?"

"Well," she said, still holding onto Stiles hand as he squeezed hers, "We agreed it was better to come and help. Plus, you were right. I know I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if one of us was infected."

Stiles squeezed Arielle's hand as tight as he could, not because he was keeping close to her, but because he could slowly start to feel the room spinning. Within seconds, everything went from blurry to black. He dropped to the floor at Arielle's feet.

"Stiles!" Arielle cried out, dropping to her knees touching his face, "Mom!"

"Scott, help me get him up!" Melissa commanded.

Scott quickly moved to the other side of the bed, feeling his own breath pick up. Kira got off of the bed as Melissa, Arielle, and Scott placed him on the bed, lying down on his back. Arielle kept his hand, which was still holding hers, between both of her hands.

"Scott..." Arielle trembled, "What's happening?"

"I don't know," Scott panicked, "Mom?"

"Okay, let's not panic," Melissa said, calming her children, "Did he come into contact with the creatures you saw?"

"Yes," Arielle nodded, trying to catch her breath, "H-He was under one of them. It had him pinned down. There was this green stuff falling from it's mouth and it landed on him. Stiles told me it was like drool or something."

"Do you think he has it?" Scott asked nervously.

"Kira," Melissa said, "Take my children out of the ER please. I need to run a few more tests."

"Mom…" Arielle begged, looking at her desperately as she held onto Stiles's hand, shaking her head and refusing to let go.

"It'll be okay," Melissa whispered. She carefully took Stiles's hand out of hers and held onto them, passing them onto Kira as she took them. She started to lead them both out of the Emergency Room. Melissa closed the curtain for extra measure.

In the lobby, Scott and Arielle couldn't help but blame themselves. Arielle couldn't stand, pacing in front of her brother as she questioned she could have missed that, why she let herself be beaten. The second she went down, Stiles was in jeopardy. If only she were strong enough to stop the creature in time. Scott had his head in his hands, trying to figure out what to tell the sheriff.

"If he has it…" Scott said quietly through his broken voice, "I'm going after that herb."

"I'm going with you," Kira said, "I also found a recipe online for a cure that was used in Ancient Greece. I'll print a copy for you, Arielle, before we leave."

"Thanks…" Arielle whispered, staring at the ground, "but we don't even know if he has it yet…"

"We should be ready," Scott said, making Arielle look at him sadly, "In case of emergency."

Melissa turned around the corner. Both Scott and Arielle's faces bolted to Melissa. Kira tried to calm them, but they were too determined.

"You guys can see him now," Melissa said, emotionless, "He's in room A31."

Arielle bolted towards the room, Kira running after her. Scott stopped at his mother.

"Does he have it?" Scott asked.

"It's too soon to say," Melissa sighed, crossing her arms, "If he did, he only just got infected. I'm keeping him here for the night under observation. Now go ahead in. I'm gonna call the Sheriff."

"Okay," Scott nodded, running past her into the hospital room A31.

Arielle and Kira were the first ones to walk in. While Kira stood at the door, Arielle saw her boyfriend's endearing smile and she rushed to him, kissing him as deeply as she could.

"Are you okay?" Arielle asked, touching his cheek, "How do you feel?"

He chuckled. "I'm fine. Just a little light headed. But I'm better for seeing you."

Scott arrived behind Kira, standing in the doorway with her. He looked almost too frightened to walk in. Kira could feel him shaking next to her, so she took his hand. They exchanged a quick glance at each other. He kissed her forehead and whispered a soft "Thanks" before they walked into the room.

"Hey buddy," Scott called. Arielle stepped aside so Stiles could see him.

"So what's the verdict?" Stiles chuckled, "Am I dying?"

Arielle nudged him lightly. Of course he would turn this into a laughing moment.

Scott shrugged, "I don't know, man. My mom's gonna keep you here for the night to see if anything else happens. She's calling your dad right now."

"Alright," he nodded, "It's probably nothing. What are the symptoms again?"

"One of the signs is the skin turns pale," Kira started.

Arielle scoffed. "Oh great! Now we'll never be able to tell if he's sick."

"HA. HA." Stiles sarcastically laughed.

"Okay," Kira continued, "What are some other things you guys found on past patients?"

"Right when the disease fully infects all the vital organs," Arielle answered, "it'll start to break the body down, which is first indicated by the disposal of blood."

Right as Arielle finished talking, Stiles squeezed Arielle's hand again and grabbed the bucket lined with a plastic bag next to the bed. Everyone really hoped it would be disgusting vomit, but when Stiles removed the bucket from his face, his lips were covered in dark colored blood and the bucket was almost completely full.

"So…" Stiles sighed, "Like that?"


	14. Imprint

A few days had passed. Stiles insisted that Scott and Kira spend a little more time with him before he got worse. He didn't want them to leave immediately and come back and have their final memories of him even paler than he already is with skinny limbs, and red eyes. So they stayed with him. Stiles used his terminal illness to guilt Scott into watching the Star Wars Original Trilogy for the first time. Scott enjoyed it plenty, but he would have enjoyed it more if Arielle and Stiles weren't saying, "I love you" "I know" along with the movie. Apparently, that was how they watched the movies, regardless of who was watching along with them. After a few days, Stiles finally let them go find the cure once he started to feel his legs grow weaker. The Sheriff had been in and out when he wasn't working, but he wasn't worried about his son as long as Arielle was with him, which she was 24/7. Arielle swore she would never leave his side until the herb was in her hands. That was the most reassuring thing in the world to the Sheriff. He knew his son was in good hands.

Melissa opened the door the morning Scott and Kira left for the mountain range. The first thing she saw were two sleeping teenagers, one in a hospital bed and the other in a chair next to the bed. Their hands were on the bed, their fingers a single millimeter apart from each other. She didn't want to disturb such a peaceful scene, but Melissa hadn't seen Arielle home in days.

"Arielle…" Melissa said, rubbing her daughter's shoulder, "Arielle, wake up..."

Arielle squeezed her eyes and then woke up, stretching out in the chair and frowning at the discomfort.

"Did you spend the night again?" Melissa asked.

Arielle yawned, "I never left."

Melissa, shocked, but still not surprised at all, rubbed her daughter's back and helped her stand up. "Honey, you need to go home," she insisted, "Your father hasn't seen you in days and frankly, you could use a shower. Go home, get some real rest, clean yourself up, make your father some breakfast, and then come back to Stiles."

Arielle looked at him, peacefully sleeping. She took his hand again. "It's not him," she replied, "It's me. I'm the one who can't handle being away from him."

"I know," Melissa said, leading her away from his bedside to the door, "and as much as I admire your generosity and genuine concern, you need to think about what you can do for yourself. I guarantee you that by the time you get back, he'll still be asleep."

She chuckled and nodded. "Okay…"

Before leaving, Arielle placed a kiss on Stiles's forehead and started to leave the hospital. When she got into her car, the phone rang.

"Kira?" Arielle answered.

"Hey, Scott found something on Stiles's board," she said urgently, "It was one word. Nosoi."

"Nosoi?"

"Yeah. Do you know anything about that? He didn't write anything else beneath it. My guess is he probably glanced at it and wrote it down so he wouldn't forget it, but he never had the chance to finish."

"No, I might know something," Arielle said, "They're like evil death spirits who inhabit the bodies of humans through their noses. If the Ancient Greeks were still around, they'd say the Nosoi are responsible for the people who caused, say 9/11 or the Boston Bombings."

"Well the Nosoi aren't alone," Kira added, "They're also accompanied by the Kallikantzaroi."

"The ones who attacked Stiles and poisoned him…"

"Exactly. My guess is the Nosoi are inhabiting someone in Beacon Hills and whoever that is is now controlling the Kallikantzaroi."

"I still don't know how you guys can pronounce that so easily," Scott commented on the phone.

"Is there any way we can stop them?" Arielle asked, "We can just kill whoever it is, right?"

"Not exactly," Kira said, "Even if we kill the human, the spirit roams free and all we got is another innocent dead body on our hands. But I did find something online."

"How very Stiles of you," Arielle said quietly.

There was a pause as Kira pulled up the information on her phone. "Got it! It's a dagger that can expel the spirit and trap it inside."

Arielle thought back, knowing she saw a weird looking dagger before. Like the one that fell off of the creature when it fell and turned to green smoke. She pulled it out of her purse and touched the engraving on it.

"Would it have writing on it?" Arielle asked.

"Umm.. I think so, maybe," Kira answered.

Arielle nodded, suddenly much more satisfied than she was before. "I think I have it."

With the dagger in hand and the ambrosia on the way, Arielle was much more confident in ending this for good. She returned to her house, took a nice hot shower and blow-dried her hair, then met her dad in the kitchen for a nice breakfast of blueberry pancakes. It was a long time since Arielle and Agent McCall had a nice sit-down meal together. Ever since Agent McCall got his own place, he's been more distant than ever, but it didn't bother her all that much. Melissa agreed. It was important to spend time with her father, however, given their history, it wasn't necessary to see him all the time. Besides, he still had a key to the house and could visit whenever he wanted. "Call first," Melissa always says to him. She caught him up on Stiles's condition and he wished them all the luck in the world, which made her feel a little better. The only thing that was missing from this good day was not knowing who the Nosoi possessed/who was infecting the entire town.

Arielle waved goodbye to her dad as she watched him drive away. She was about to leave herself when she saw Theo walking down the street past her house.

"Oh hey," Theo waved, "Long time, no see."

"Theo…" Arielle said awkwardly, shoving her bag up onto her shoulder, "Hey."

"How are you?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I've been better… Stiles has that disease that's wiping out the whole town."

"Oh shit," Theo gasped, "That sucks. I'm so sorry… and I mean that. I'm genuinely sorry."

"I believe you," she breathed, "but I can't stay and talk. I actually have to get back to him."

"Yeah, sure," he nodded.

She turned and walked off the porch to the car parked in the driveway. She unlocked it and pulled the door open, but was interrupted before she got in.

"I'd be lying if I said I hope he gets better…" Theo said, "because then I'd finally have my shot…" Arielle turned around and shook her head slowly, feeling so incredibly sorry for him, "But I'm not that guy..."

She nodded at him and tried to grin, but she got in her car instead. Theo watched her drive away, knowing that he'd always remember her as the one who got away, as cheesy as that was.

When Arielle returned to the hospital, she wasn't surprised at all to see Stiles still asleep in his bed. She quietly closed the door and walked up to his bed, grabbing his hand in hers again, somehow feeling absolutely complete again.

"Stiles…" she whispered sweetly, leaning in towards him, "Wake up, babe…" He snored. "I brought the Prequel Trilogy…" She pulled out the DVD copies she had in her living room and showed them off. He snored again. "Stiles?"

With no response, Arielle scoffed and leaned in closely to him, her forehead touching his. Right when her lips were about to touch his, he spoke. "Don't kiss me."

Arielle chuckled. "Why not?"

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet," he murmured.

"Wow, you will not go without brushing your teeth," Arielle said, then frowned as she backed up, "When did you wake up?"

He started opening his eyes slowly and heavily. "When you said Prequel Trilogy."

Arielle laughed and sat down in the chair.

"Not gonna lie," he continued, "I'm relieved you're back…"

"You knew I was gone?" she asked, "You were asleep the whole time."

He shrugged, "I knew. Trust me."

Arielle leaned against the bed, running the tips of her fingers along his jawline. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright," he answered, trying to sit himself up, but failing. Arielle handed him the remote to his bed.

"Well worry no longer," Arielle assured him, "Scott and Kira haven't gotten the ambrosia yet, but they will..."

Stiles didn't say anything, mostly because he noticed that Arielle wasn't looking at him when she said that. She always looks at him directly whenever she talks to him honestly. He knew her well enough to know when she was unsure about something. He tried to scoot himself over in the bed, then he patted the open spot next to her.

"Come here," he whispered.

Arielle smiled gently and crawled her way into the spot next to him. He wrapped an arm around her and she shuddered at the feeling his arm being skinnier than it was before. He rubbed his thumb against her shoulder to ease her.

"Do you remember that time I found out you were special?" he asked.

"You're gonna have to narrow it down," she said, mimicking a flip of the hair.

He chuckled, "I mean when you showed me your talent for the first time."

"By the locker room?"

"Yeah. That. I thought you were just a scared orphan delinquent with social problems. That was the day I realized you were much more than that…"

Arielle nodded and rested her head against his chest. "Do you wanna know what my moment was?"

"Tell me," he requested with a grin.

"In English class," she answered, "You were my only friend in that class… and we talked about our moms… I don't know, I guess I just saw a different side of you; one that was just as broken as I was."

"And, of course, we avoid cliches by still being a little broken."

"Everyone's a little broken."

He sighed and kissed her forehead. He whispered, "At least you're here to spend my last moments with me…"

"Don't say that," Arielle begged, "You're not going to die… even if they can't find the cure, I know what will end this once and for all."

"And if that doesn't work either?" Stiles said, "I don't want to spend my last moments fighting. I just want you to be here… I love you."

Arielle looked up at him, a little surprised but in the pleasant kind of way. That was the first time she heard him say it genuinely in a long time. "You love me?"

He nodded. "I truly… deeply… love you."

Their foreheads pressed together and Arielle whispered back, "Episode II: Attack of the Clones."

He laughed and kissed her on her lips, kissing her like it was going to be his last time, cherishing everything about it from the taste of her lips to the pounding of his heart that he felt in his weak chest.

"You deserve to know this, if I don't make it in time," Stiles said quietly, "It was the reason I had been so distant with you… I was planning a week for us at the safe house again. Things have been so crazy here, getting in the way of us, that I just wanted to take you away from it all… it was supposed to be a surprise, but the odds aren't looking too good for me right now… I thought you should know."

Arielle normally would have rejoiced at that idea, but he was holding her in his arms and dying as he spoke to her. She started to think of all the beautiful memories they could have made, all of the love they could have shared. It would have been a fantastic trip, probably better than the first one. Then she started to think of the first trip. When they saved each other's lives multiple times. When they laughed together. When he held her in front of the fireplace at night. When they almost burned the pancakes because they were distracted by each other. When they kissed for the first time. When they made love for the first time with each other. The list could go on and on forever, but the more Arielle started to think about it, the more emotional she got. She rested her head in his chest and started to cry quietly, tears slowly falling down her face and landing on his hospital gown. It was all going to be over soon if Scott and Kira didn't hurry up. More and more Arielle was accepting the idea that Stiles might die by the time the sun goes down, which made her cry even more. She could feel her heart being tugged at, like it wanted to be ripped from her chest. It was pain that she never once thought she would have to experience.

They were both respectively so weak, physically and emotionally, that they fell asleep in each other's arms, Arielle's tears evident on her cheeks and by the wet marks on Stiles's hospital gown. From outside the window, the storm clouds were forming over Beacon Hills as a young man's anger grew more and more like a grenade ready to explode. The thunder popped and Theo Raeken stood outside of Stiles's hospital window, patiently waiting for Arielle's body to fit perfectly with his as he comforts her over the death of the fallen Stiles Stilinski.


	15. In the First Place

It was nightfall and a shit ton of rain was scheduled to fall on Beacon Hills. Thankfully, Scott and Kira got back in time. They called Arielle just before they parked and she rushed to the lobby to meet them, not willing to waste a single second. Stiles's legs were getting skinner along with his arms and shoulders while his skin was getting paler (if that's even possible) to almost the color as white as bone. His condition was getting worse and worse by the minute.

Scott and Kira slammed their car doors with sealed plastic bags of ambrosia in their hands. Theo was heading the other direction when he ran into them.

"Scott and Kira," he called, "Arielle's posse, if you will. How are you guys?"

"Been better," Scott answered.

"Yeah, I heard about Stiles," he said sadly, "I'm so sorry guys. That must suck."

"Actually, it's gonna be okay," Kira said excitedly, holding up the bag of herbs.

Theo cringed and coughed a little bit. "What is that?"

"Ambrosia," Scott answered, "We think we can make some kind of remedy out of it to save everyone who's sick."

"You found ambrosia?" Theo coughed, "Isn't that, like, really rare?"

"You have no idea how far and how fast we've traveled to find this," Kira said, still catching her breath.

"Great, love to stay and talk," Scott said, patting Theo's back, which made him a little more irritated with the smell, "but we gotta go. Arielle will tell you how it goes."

Without looking back at Theo, Scott and Kira took off towards the entrance to the hospital with the bags of ambrosia tightly in hand.

"Hey!" Arielle called, running towards them from Stiles's room with Melissa at her side.

"Hey," Scott answered, "How long have you actually been here…?"

"Doesn't matter," Arielle dismissed, snatching the bag from his hand, "Is this it?"

"Yeah," Kira said, "I have more if you need it. You got that recipe I sent you?"

"Yes," Arielle nodded, "I can probably have this done in 30 minutes."

"Okay, I'm going to set up a room where you can work," Melissa said.

Arielle handed the bags to Melissa and she walked to one of the empty rooms on the same floor. Scott, Kira, and Arielle returned into Stiles's room.

"So here's what we've got," Scott announced, "We have the ambrosia for Arielle to make the cure. We have the dagger that can get rid of the evil spirits. All we need is someone who is possessed by the spirits. That's how they work, right? They can't do anything if they have a human host?"

"In some legends," Arielle nodded.

"Well with the messages written in blood and Kira being kidnapped, I'd say there is definitely a human possessed by an evil Greek Spirit roaming around town," Stiles pointed out.

"But who?" Kira asked, "Would it be someone we know?"

They all shook their heads. "If it were someone we know, I think we'd be able to know by now," Stiles said.

"Like the Sheriff says," Arielle continued, "If they're hiding something, they always do something wrong. We would have been able to catch them by now.

"They probably would have blown it by giving us some big clue," Scott said, "Like…"

Arielle started to think of an example and thought of someone keeping the cure hidden from them. Just then, a terrible light bulb went off in her head. She felt her stomach drop.

"Like owning a book that has facts about ambrosia in it and then quickly skipping over it during a study session…" she said quietly.

Scott caught on almost immediately when he heard the words "study session".

"The person who couldn't stand the smell of the herb when he ran into us," Scott said, "Think about it. Who threw a party that delayed our first road trip?"

Stiles raised his eyebrows and answered, "The only person in this town who might have it out for me…"

"and the person who kidnapped me… perhaps luring Stiles down there in the first place," Kira gasped.

"Who else spent two weeks in the hospital for a broken leg, but wasn't infected at all?" Scott continued, getting more and more worried as the pieces came together.

"The same person who just so happened to show up into Arielle's life just days after the infection hit Beacon Hills," Stiles said.

Arielle gasped and sat down in the nearest chair, completely shocked and paralyzed at how she didn't even think of this.

"Theo..."

How could she have let herself trust him? Or make him believe that he could be trusted in the first place. She may have even had sexual feelings for him, which made her stomach drop even more. She just stared into the empty space, everything going blurry as her world was turned upside down. No one had ever betrayed her trust like that before. It was something that was so new that she didn't know exactly how to cope with it. However, there was a little water spirit inside of her, thirsty for revenge.

"The Nosoi took over Theo's body and made him into their little puppet," Kira added.

"Anybody else get a bad vibe from that guy to begin with?" Stiles asked. If he could have, he would've raised his hand in the air obnoxiously, but his arms were far too weak to move vertically like that.

Arielle pulled out the dagger from her bag and stood up.

"I'll take care of it," she sneered.

Scott grabbed her arm and flashed his red eyes at her. "Arielle. Don't."

"I can do it," she fumed, flashing her own light blue eyes at him, "He trusts me…"

"But you're the only one who can make the cure," Scott reminded her, "We need you to focus on that."

The sound of Stiles gagging made both brother and sister turn around and watch as he coughed up what was left of the red colored blood in his body. It was painful, like his skin was sandpaper against his bones.

"Yeah, you might wanna get started on that…" Stiles suggested kindly.

Arielle nodded, eyes wide. She gave the dagger to Stiles and ran out of the room as fast as she could. If she couldn't destroy Theo, then maybe she could destroy what she created in time before the absolutely worst could happen.


	16. Ichor

The rain was starting to pour outside. Kira, with her swords in her hands, and Scott, with the dagger in his hand, pushed the doors of the hospital open and stood under the veranda, looking around to see if Theo was still here, waiting for them. When they caught sight of the beefy body of the teenager, Scott started to walk, but was stopped by Kira.

"Just be careful…" Kira cautioned.

Scott nodded, "Okay, NOW I get how that feels."

They kissed each other quickly, just in case the worst were to happen, and then charged out into the pouring rain. They pulled out their weapons and Scott was transformed into a werewolf when they approached Theo, who was standing still, stoic, and unafraid. He looked between the two of them and laughed.

"This is a sight," Theo spat, "An armed werewolf and kitsune trying to destroy me. I guess the cat's out of the bag now. I suppose you all know about my plan to sneakily kill off the entire town, using a disease to make it look like an accident, and bring fear back to the name Nosoi."

"You'll have to go through us before you make that happen," Scott growled.

Theo pouted and mimicked a tear falling down his face with his finger. "It's a shame I'll have to kill you… Arielle might never forgive me. I really started to like her too."

Kira swung one of her swords at him, but he stepped away and touched his finger tips to the edge of the blade.

"Alright…" Theo sighed, "You wanna play? Let's play."

Inside the hospital, only two doors down from Stiles's room, Arielle had a station set up on a table. There was a hot plate turned on with a beaker on top. She tapped her foot anxiously as she water for the water in the beaker started to bubble. Once it finally came to a boil, Arielle took the olive oil in the bottle and dumped the whole thing inside it.

Outside, Kira had an advantage against Theo, considering he was unarmed and all he was really doing was running away with style. But once her blade scraped his forearm, he shook his head and sucked his teeth. "You shouldn't have done that." The scar healed and Theo's face suddenly changed to that of a werewolf with yellow eyes and razor sharp claws. With one slash of his hand, Kira was scratched on her stomach and fell to the ground, her swords falling next to her.

"No!" Scotted roared. He turned to Theo and his eyes started to glow red, charging towards him next. He was going to pay for what he just did.

Arielle mixed the olive oil and the hot water together, then crushed the ambrosia with her hands, sprinkling the chunks of it into the beaker, causing it to start to glow like a flickering light.

As valiant as Scott was, Theo picked up Scott by the neck, his feet dangling below him.

"When I'm finished with you two," Theo threatened, "it's only a matter of time till Stiles dies and then Arielle will have no one to turn to but me. All I have to do is convince her that this body hasn't been taken over by spirits and she can finally help me finish off the rest of this town."

"What's the final ingredient?" Melissa asked Arielle impatiently.

"It says Ichor," Arielle said, panicking.

"Well what does that mean?"

"Ichor is blood of the gods," Arielle said, trying not to lose her breath, "How the hell am I supposed to get that?!"

From his hospital bed, Stiles looked out his window and saw Theo with his grip on Scott. Stiles's eyes widened and he gripped onto the sides of the bed, fearing for his best friend's life.

"Maybe," Melissa suggested, "since Poseidon gifted the Oceanids, your blood will do the trick."

"What!?" Arielle cried, "That's crazy!"

With Theo's claws beginning to dig into Scott's neck, Theo laughed and whispered, "Say goodbye…"

"HEY!"

Theo turned around and saw exactly who he hoped he'd see. Stiles was grabbing onto a railing for dear life as he stood out there in the rain. Finally, he thought, throwing Scott away, landing right next to Kira. They looked at each other and grabbed hands, nodding that they were each going to be okay. Scott turned his head and saw Theo walking towards Stiles, who was shaking so hard, it was a miracle as to how he was actually moving.

Kira panicked, knowing that Stiles wouldn't stand a chance against Theo in his condition. She touched the wet pavement and closed her eyes, channeling her electricity and imagining it going in one current towards Theo. Scott saw the dagger on the ground where he dropped it and threw it like a hockey puck across the pavement at Theo's feet. Quite suddenly, Theo was paralyzed on the spot, covered in electricity.

Arielle wasn't going to risk anything. It was either let Stiles die or see if this crazy idea works. She cut her hand with a knife and squeezed her hand over the beaker, shutting her eyes as she cringed with the pain.

Stiles bent down and grabbed the dagger, stabbing Theo in the chest with the last tiny bit of strength he had left. Not only was Stiles feeling the intensity of the spirits all moving into this object in his hand, but he was also feeling the electric shock surging through his body. He pulled the dagger out of Theo and threw it to the ground, Theo falling backwards unconscious. Scott and Kira got up slowly with smiles on their faces, and Stiles tried to smile back, but he was just so tired. With a thud, he fell onto the pavement.

Arielle felt that tugging feeling again on her heart, only this time it felt like it had been successfully ripped out. She stood back and gasped, grabbing her chest. She looked down at herself and saw nothing there. That may have actually made it worse. It may have been too late. She sprinted out of the hospital and saw Stiles lying there in his hospital gown on the curb side.

"No!" she screamed, running to him and sliding on her knees. Scott and Kira grabbed onto each other for dear life, Scott trying his hardest to be the strong one, but failing miserably. Arielle lifted Stiles into her lap and placed her mouth on his, breathing air into him, then pumping his chest and counting. "Don't you dare, Stiles! Don't you fucking dare!" She tried again, and again, and again, but each time was less and less effective as she kept getting more emotional. She finally broke down in tears, hugging his body close to hers.

As her wailing started to fade away, Melissa came out, holding a beaker filled with glowing liquid.

"Arielle!" Melissa shouted, "It worked!"

Her eyes widened and she looked from Stiles's body to Scott, then to her mother, who was already running towards her.

"Do you think it might be too late?" Melissa asked.

"No, just do it!" Arielle cried.

Melissa carefully opened Stiles's mouth and poured a few sips of the liquid down his throat. Arielle stroked his hair, wishing harder than she ever had before.

"Come back to me, please," she whispered over and over again.

It was only three seconds, but it felt like it was too long, however, the color was starting to return to his face. His body was already growing in her arms until he was his old self again. Arielle looked hopefully at his face, wanting so desperately to see those brown eyes.

Stiles gasped and woke up, breathing heavily and touching his chest. He noticed that he was in Arielle's lap with Melissa next to her and Scott and Kira weren't too far away. The rain was starting to lighten up on them into a bright drizzle. He lifted up his hand, happy to see that it was almost effortless. Finally, he looked at Arielle again and touched her face. "Never tell me the odds."

She laughed and nodded, more tears coming down her face. Overcome with relief and joy she leaned down and kissed him hard. He was almost a little too overcome with pleasure by this kiss, because he pulled her down closer to him and rolled her over so they were lying on the pavement together.

"Uh, gross!" Scott called.

They let go of the kiss and sat up, laughing. Stiles and Scott charged towards each other and hugged as Kira and Arielle exchanged a grateful look at each other. Melissa wrapped her arm around her, rubbing her shoulder.

Finally, they could all take a big sigh of relief.


	17. Rehabilitation

Melissa went around and started feeding small doses of the cure to the patients. With only a few drops, the people who were infected were cured in seconds, being able to stand up and hug their families one more time. Theo was taken into the hospital yet again for observation. His body had healed quickly, as expected, so he wasn't there for long. He told Melissa that he was a chimera; a combination two supernatural creatures. His dad was a coyote and his mom was a werewolf. Melissa often wondered why Arielle didn't just use her vision on him so she could figure it out herself. Theo shrugged to that question and just said, "Cause she didn't want to."

Meanwhile, outside of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, Stiles was recovering from being electrocuted (before dying and coming back to life). The cure had made him good as new, but the Sheriff wasn't taking any chances. Stiles was to stay in his house and wasn't allowed to go anywhere for the next couple weeks. So basically it was being grounded while still being able to watch TV, eat meals in bed, and get visits from his one and only. Before all of this mess came to a head, Arielle told Stiles they would watch the Prequel Trilogy together again, so she drove to his house with all three DVDs still in her bag.

Arielle parked the car on the street in front of Sheriff Stilinski's house and climbed out, noticing the jeep behind her with a smile. Just in her peripheral was someone she really didn't want to see, but someone she knew she had to forgive at some point, considering he wouldn't stop calling and texting her.

"I-uh- thought I might find you here," Theo said, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck.

"Might as well have," Arielle said, crossing her arms, "Honestly, I probably wouldn't have talked to you if you didn't."

"I understand," he nodded, "but you should know that none of that evil infecting people with a fate worse than the plague wasn't me. I really did move to Beacon Hills after my parents died, but right as I crossed the town line, I knew something was in my head. Most of what happened between then and when I woke up in the hospital with a stab wound in my chest is sort of a blur… but I know that doesn't excuse my behavior overall, so I wanted to apologize for giving you so much trouble."

"Well…" Arielle sighed, "Thank you for saying that… and while I'm not willing to forgive you just yet, I will say it's okay for now."

"Okay for now works for me," he chuckled, "And… I know it's not likely this'll change anything, but through all of it...I really did- well, still do- have feelings for you… that part was real and all me."

"I still have to decline…" she tried to say as gently as possible, gravitating towards Stiles's car, "Thanks but no thanks… I've got the back seat of a busted up jeep with my name on it." She leaned against the jeep and sat on the hood, giving it two good pats.

Theo shrugged, sitting on the hood next to her, "For what it's worth, he's a lucky guy."

"Thanks," she blushed, brushing her hair behind her ear as the wind started to blow.

"I was always kind of curious," he said, leaning in closer to her, "Those spirits in my head kinda read your mind, so I know about the whole dream thing…"

"Step away from my girl and get your hands off my jeep!" Stiles called from his front door.

Theo and Arielle laughed as they stood up off the jeep. He held out his hand to her. "Friends?"

Arielle nodded. "Eventually," she teased, "but it's gonna take a while for him to accept you."

"and I totally understand that," Theo agreed, "I guess I'll see you later."

They waved each other and they went their separate ways. Stiles placed his hands on Arielle's shoulders, moving down her arms and rubbing them.

"I still don't like that guy," he frowned.

Arielle noticed how Stiles was looking in Theo's direction, so she took her hand to his jaw and moved him so he looked at her. She shook her head then kissed him passionately, her hands wrapping around his neck as his rested on her waist.

"He's just going to have to deal with it," Arielle whispered against his lips.

"I like the sound of that," Stiles smirked, then took her hand, "Come on. There are some people who are dying to see you."

Arielle frowned. "Who?"

He pushed his door open and they turned to the living room to see Lydia, Allison, and Isaac all sitting on the couch. Arielle screeched with joy and ran towards the first person everyone expected her to hug; Isaac.

"When the hell were you planning on letting me know you got back?" she asked as one of her older brothers picked her up and spun her around.

"I like seeing the look on your face when you're surprised," Isaac bragged, "It's funny."

He put her down and Arielle hugged Allison and Lydia together.

"How was Greece?" she asked as they all took their seats.

Scott was sitting in one of the arm chairs with Kira on his lap. Stiles and Arielle shared a love seat while Lydia, Allison, and Isaac sat back down on the couch.

"More importantly," Allison said, "What the hell happened here while we were gone?"

"It's kind of a long story," Kira answered.

"It involves a crazy ancient infectious disease," Arielle said.

"created by these weird ancient greek evil spirits with tiny evil henchmen," Scott added.

"A party where Arielle and Kira got super drunk," Stiles said, "Plus, I died and came back to life."

"And there was a hot new guy," Kira finally said.

"A hot new guy?" Lydia chimed in.

Everyone was ready to look at Kira before they all slowly turned to Lydia, each and everyone of them frowning in confusion. It made perfect sense to Lydia why she would ask about that. Next to her were Allison and Isaac holding hands, in front of her was Stiles with his arm around Arielle who was curled up next to him, and on the other side of her was Kira on Scott's lap.

"What?" Lydia snapped, "I'm the only single girl in a room full of couples. How did that happen to me? Me! This is not how this was supposed to work."

"I don't know Lydia," Arielle teased, "I hear Deputy Parrish is pretty hot."

Lydia sat back and blushed.

"Ew, my dad's deputy?" Stiles cringed, "That's never gonna happen."

They all started laughing for their own special reasons, but it felt great to have the room full again with each other's friends, laughing and having a great time without worrying about whatever trying to kill them next.

"Hey, you guys wanna order pizza?" Scott asked.

"OR," Stiles said, pointing to Scott, "We could make you watch Star Wars."

Arielle opened her mouth to agree before the rest of the room shouted, "NO!"

"Fine…" Stiles said, reaching up to pick up the phone, "Pizza it is then…"

Eating pizza, sharing crazy stories, and enjoying each other's company. Of course this wasn't going to last. Sooner or later there would be some other supernatural threat coming into Beacon Hills that no one would know anything about, and so it would be back to sleuthing, fighting, crying, and all kinds of drama that would all come to a head before it fizzles out and comes back to the middle. But for now, they were resting comfortably in the middle.

The middle was just fine.


	18. Safe House

Arielle came down the stairs with an empty stomach and happy heart. What she wasn't expecting to see when she reached the first floor of her house was Scott and Kira going at each other on the living room couch. Thankfully, the couple had been getting back into each other's groove since the latest threat dissolved, so Arielle let it go and decided not to look.

"Hey Scott," she called. He ignored her. "Scott? I'm going to Subway. What do you want?"

He stopped kissing her and jerked his head to the side, looking at her with desperately hungry eyes. "Okay, uhhh get me a Turkey Club, please."

"Oh!" Kira squeaked, "Get me a Spicy Italian?"

"You got it," she said, writing that down on her phone.

Isaac came down the stairs only seconds later, immediately shielding his eyes, also completely aware of their current situation.

"Hey," Isaac said to Arielle, "Where are you off to?"

"Subway for lunch with Stiles," Arielle answered.

Kira, Scott, and Isaac all grinned at each other. If the goal was to be discreet, they were failing.

"What?" Arielle asked, catching their glare.

"Nothing," Scott coughed.

She shook her head, then heard the honk outside on the curb.

"You guys are weird," she complained, "I'll see you later."

All three of them waited for her to leave and then they watched the door slowly come to a close. Once it made a hitting down and it shut, they all smiled at each other excitedly.

"You got her stuff there?" Isaac asked Kira.

"Oh yeah," Kira answered, "I got them down there yesterday. She doesn't suspect a thing."

On the way to the Subway, Stiles had to make small talk that would distract Arielle from the road, since they definitely weren't going to Subway.

"Did you see the new Star Wars trailer?" he asked excitedly.

"Oh my god, yes!" Arielle cheered, "It was the most epic thing I've ever seen."

"It's not like we've waited ten years for this or anything."

"I'm SO excited! I rarely get excited about movies."

"Cause you think they all suck because you can clearly tell they're all about making money, but you'll go see them anyway if someone else pays for you."

"Exactly, but THIS. How do you NOT see this!? You are not buying my ticket for this one. I am going all out and paying for my own every time I see it, which is, of course, going to be at least ten times."

"At least?"

"I'm setting a new personal record here, babe."

"Is it bad that that's kind of a turn on?" Stiles asked, airing out his shirt.

Arielle laughed, "Drive, Stiles! That can wait," her laughter faded as she looked out onto the road, realizing that they weren't on the freeway anymore, but rather on a dirt road with trees surrounding them, "Babe, is this a shortcut or did you get us lost again?"

"That was one time," Stiles muttered under his breath, which made Arielle giggle.

The car pulled up to a dead end and Stiles turned of the car, turning over to his girlfriend and smiled. Arielle looked around, extremely confused, but then gasped when she recognized the scenery and the smell of the lake water seeping in through the slit of the car windows.

"No way…" she said, shaking her head.

Stiles reached down and grabbed her hand, "I'm sorry I was a shitty boyfriend while trying to be the best boyfriend ever."

Arielle jumped towards him and kissed him hard on the mouth. When their lips parted, she growled, grabbing onto the collar of his plaid shirt. "If I wasn't so anxious to go inside, we'd be doing it in the backseat by now."

They grinned at each other and quickly moved from the car to the dock where the lake was. Suddenly, the urgency melted away. It was like she could see herself with him sharing their first kiss while sitting on that dock, covered with water and freezing because of the breeze. He took her hand and lead her inside, pushing the screen door open. The bed was the same; large and comfortable. Nothing had changed or moved at all since the last time they were there. The chairs were still in front of the fireplace and the kitchen was still in the corner. One thing was different, though.

"We don't have to hang a bedsheet between your side and mine now," he whispered into her ear, "I know this isn't as extravagant as I made it seem, but after I died and came back to life, I decided those plans were bullshit and all I could ever need in this place is you… and a stack of condoms in the drawer."

"Oh good," Arielle said relieved as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again, but much slower and gentler, "I love you…" she whispered against his lips.

"I love you more…" he said in between kisses.

"I love you most," she argued.

He kissed her way up to his ear and whispered in a low and deep voice, "I love you more than my jeep."

Arielle gasped and stepped back. She bit on her bottom lip and shut the large door behind the screen door.

"I love it when you talk dirty to me," she gasped, running up to him and jumping into his arms, wrapping her legs around him, kissing him deeply.

Without even breaking the kiss, they fell onto the bed with him on top of her, his hands falling along her maroon shirt which stopped just below her ribcage, feeling her smooth skin between her shirt and shorts. The way she was dressed plus the anticipation of the moment had him going crazy the entire car ride there. He was quick to get rid of that shirt, revealing her black lace bra. Fuck, it's like she fucking knew, he thought, placing kisses on her cleavage as she took off the plaid shirt over that white t-shirt. He moved his lips to her neck, giving her that moan that she loves to feel so much. She arched her back just a little bit and he moved his hands underneath to unclasp her bra. She pushed him up just a little bit to take the t-shirt off and their lips attacked each other again.

They continued to kiss, his hands moving from her breasts, down her stomach, and to the buttons of her shorts. Once he was done fumbling with them, he unbuttoned her pants and stuck his hand underneath her underwear, gently feeling her center teasingly, causing her to moan in agony against his lips, combing her fingers through his hair. The growing arch of her back made his fingers move so he was rubbing that sensitive spot of hers. His lips moved to her neck again, this time hoping to leave an impression there as he pushed his fingers inside of her, curling as he moved them. She gasped, her grip getting tighter on him. His thumb went back to her little nub and rubbed harder as his fingers worked faster.

"Ohh fuck," she moaned loudly. He could feel her walls start to squeeze his fingers, but he slowed down, "Baby, please… I'm s-so close."

After he was satisfied with the bruise on her neck that was starting to form, he kissed up to her ear, biting on her lobe gently before whispering, "Not yet."

Her mind was so numbed by her almost-orgasm that she hadn't even noticed that the rest of his clothes were gone and she could only feel the clothes on her bottom half being taken off and thrown to the side. Soon all she could feel was the tip of him teasing her entrance. She was almost starting to whimper, so desperate for this. Ever since he gave her that necklace, which was now the only thing she was wearing, she's wanted this. The teasing was almost too much for her to handle as she rocked her hips towards his.

Finally, he started to enter her slowly, inch by inch as they kissed each other, moaning into each other's lips. They broke the kiss to breathe hard. It had been a long time for both of them since this happened. So of course, it was no surprise to either of them that there was no control left. He was thrusting hard and fast without any kind of preparation. His hands grabbed her hips as this rhythm continued and her legs wrapped around his body, desperate for more, wanting him to give it all to her. There was nothing around them anymore, just the sound of each other's breathing, their moans and whispers to each other, and the wave of pleasure they were riding together. Their foreheads were pressed together, breathing together. His head lifted just a little bit and they looked at each other, which somehow only increased their pleasure. He took her hands and pushed them over her head, making it easier for him to go harder and deeper into her, her jaw dropping and her eyes squeezing shut at the intensity.

His lips crashed against hers once again as he brought his hand down to her center, rubbing her little nub.

"Come on, baby," he begged, moaning deeply against her lips.

She couldn't form words out of her mouth, only loud moans and groans as she could feel herself getting closer and closer.

"St-."

"It's okay," he breathed, going in and rubbing just a little bit harder, "That's it…"

Just seconds before him, Arielle came undone in his arms, groaning his name. He could see her brown eyes shut and open to turn blue. The sight of her shivering and the goosebumps rising on her skin combined with the look in her eyes is what finished him off. They stayed there for a minute, trying to see if they could try to catch their breath.

He kissed her and fell beside her, both of them still breathing hard. Arielle started to form a smile on her face as she pushed her now sweaty hair to the side.

"Wow," she gasped, then turning over to look at Stiles, "Don't EVER make me wait that long for THAT ever again."

He raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Yes ma'am…"

They both leaned on their sides and kissed each other again, this time slow and sweetly. Eventually, they were just lying there entangled in each other's arms staring at the ceiling and talking to each other. Before they even realized it, another hour had gone by doing nothing. Stiles looked at the clock, then propped himself up to look at her, lying there naked, messy hair, and a certain glow around her skin that he hadn't seen in so long.

"I should tell you," he said quietly, tracing patterns on her bare arm, "We're not actually here for the week. Turns out my dad won't let me out of the house for longer than a weekend, so we only have about two more days left here alone."

Arielle bit her lip and leaned closer to him, her lips only inches away from his. "Then we should make the most of it…" she said in a deep voice.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

She grinned and pushed him down onto the bed and whispered into his ear. "I'll ride you so hard in the back seat of that jeep until you see stars…"

She backed away, biting her lip and he almost looked shocked by what she said. "You…" he marveled, "You are such a bad girl…"

"Am I?" she giggled.

"Yes you are…"

In seconds, they were up out of bed, slightly dressed and chasing each other out the door towards the jeep. It took a long time, there was a little drama here and there, plus some death and interference from others, but Stiles and Arielle finally got to finish what they started.

* * *

 **AN:**

 **Thank you guys SO much for keeping up with this story. It means a lot to me. If you go to the next couple chapters, you'll find the playlist for "Followed" and also...**

 **A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT (AND FINAL) INSTALLMENT OF THE DROWNED SAGA!**


	19. Playlist

Make It Without You - Andrew Belle (Arielle at Stiles' bedside)

Perfect - Hedley (Arielle and Stiles reunited)

Come on Closer - Jem (Stiles and Arielle make out in Arielle's room)

Demons - Imagine Dragons (Theo takes Arielle out)

Eyes on Fire - Blue Foundation (Stiles and Arielle motel sex)

I'm with You - Avril Levigne (Arielle saves Stiles)

Better Together - Imaginary Future (Last day of school)

Safe & Sound - Taylor Swift (Scott and Arielle comfort each other)

Sail - AWOLNATION (The Club scene)

Salvation - Gabrielle Aplin (Everyone returns after the werepanther)

Let Me Be - Harleighblu (Theo kisses Arielle)

Make You Feel My Love - Josh Kelley (Stiles's promise)


	20. DESTROYED PREVIEW

**Let's do a little time jump, shall we? Fast Forward 5 years. The pack have all moved off to college, some closer to Beacon Hills than others. But once the diplomas have been handed out and the real world awakens, it's time for everyone to come back to where it all started.**

"Congratulations to this year's graduating class!"

It was always a sound heard across the country on this hot summer's day in the middle of May or early June. Graduations caps were being thrown into the air, friends and family were giving out hugs and expressions of congratulations all while parents had their cameras out, ready to take pictures of their special college graduates.

"Would you both just hold still!?" Sheriff Stilinski asked for, what felt like, the thousandth time as his son was getting into a pose with his best friend, "Come on, guys! Just let me take the picture."

"Look at you!" Scott said excitedly, patting his best friend on the back.

"And look at you, man!" Stiles replied just as enthusiastically, recalling the day before when Scott graduated from his own school.

"What are we gonna do now?" Scott asked.

"Anything we want!" Stiles answered.

"Not yet!" the sheriff argued, "You will do nothing until you stop moving and smile for the damn picture!"

Stiles and Scott both straightened up and stopped moving. "Sorry, dad," Stiles muttered.

They smiled for the picture, the camera flashed, and the Sheriff sighed with relief. Later that afternoon, the Sheriff mentioned that he wanted to take Scott and Stiles out to lunch after the ceremony, just the three of them. It didn't seem like a bad idea at all, in fact, Stiles was more excited for the lunch than the actual ceremony. When they sat down in the diner back in the heart of Beacon Hills, the Sheriff got real quiet real fast before beginning his whole speech.

"So," he began, "Now that both of you have graduated, I have a proposition for you guys…" Both Stiles and Scott suddenly grew very quiet and still, "Rafael and I have seen a lot of grief come through Beacon Hills, a lot of it caused by… the you-know-what. Now that most of the town and the entire Sheriff's Department knows about… the you-know-what, we came up with a plan to protect the town, but it's only gonna work if we have you on board."

Stiles and Scott hadn't worried about supernatural problems in Beacon Hills since they left for school. It was like all the problems in the world had just melted away while they were trapped in their respective college bubbles. They didn't expect for the real world, or the supernatural world, to catch up to them so quickly once the fun fantasy of college was over.

"It's called the Beacon Hills Supernatural Criminal Investigative Service," the sheriff continued, "We refer to it as the SCIS. Scott, you will be our first executive special agent. Stiles, you'll be a senior detective. Both jobs seem quite appropriate for the two of you. This way, you can operate without interference from the Sheriff's Department, and it'll be a nice job for you to have after college. It also comes with housing in two of the warehouse lofts. It's a pretty sweet deal, if you ask me. Plus, Deaton's gonna be running the whole operation as the first Director of SCIS."

"Is this for just us?" Stiles asked, "Or when you say "you guys" do you mean the pack?"

The Sheriff nodded, "I mean your pack. Jordan's already got Lydia on board as a detective. In fact, she'll be your partner, Stiles."

Stiles couldn't argue with that.

"What about Kira?" Scott asked.

"I was hoping you guys could talk to her after her graduation tomorrow," the sheriff answered, "I assume she'll undoubtedly say yes."

"She will," Scott laughed, then looked at Stiles from his peripheral before asking the next question. He knew he had to tread lightly. "And Arielle?"

The air was dead as soon as Stiles turned his head to look at Scott, then he gazed off into nothing, feeling barely able to move. His lip almost trembled. His hands were getting cold. His heart was racing. Everything that was happy about this day suddenly started to make him feel a little anxious for so many reasons. 4 years, he thought.

Even though it was Scott's question, the Sheriff answered it looking directly at his distraught son. "She accepted the job offer… she's coming back to Beacon Hills."


End file.
